I have always loved fighting. Since a young age, I would often get into fights for, at least what I thought, was the right cause.
Fighting was to become my life. I considered myself lucky to be able to make a living from what I loved doing. As I started teaching more and more and as we opened our gyms, Systems Training Center, I started realizing something else: I was really passionate about teaching others the value of martial arts, especially those who really needed it for self-defense purposes, such as domestic violence victims, sexual attack victims, and kids that were bullied. It was really rewarding to be able to take what I loved so much and share it with others. I really felt that I had found my purpose in life.
On May 25th, 2015, my world changed forever. My son Liam was born. I felt that I had accomplished a lot in life, but no moment was more special or made me feel happier than that of the birth of my baby boy. All of a sudden, everything in life came second to my baby. At the same time, it was great for motivation, since I wanted to make the world a little better for my son.
On September 3rd, 2016, my world came crashing down. My wife’s sister had taken Liam to go get some food, when they were struck by a car at a pedestrian crossing. 24 hours later, every parent’s worst nightmare had become our reality: Liam was declared brain dead. We decided to donate his organs, so that other people could live because of him but all of a sudden, I had the hardest fight I’ve ever had to deal with ahead of me: To find our way back to happiness again.
On top of making sure me and my wife would find our way back to happiness, I wanted to avenge the loss of my son. Liam was killed by a 72-year-old woman, who was driving drunk at 3:30 in the afternoon. Not only did she try to leave the scene (she was later blocked in by three good Samaritans, who followed her) but she also never showed any remorse or regret. When I say avenge the loss of my son, I don’t mean going after the poor excuse of a life that took my son away from me. It was bigger than that. She was to rot in jail where she belonged. But she was just a bi-product of a failed system. My goal was to make sure that my son didn’t just become statistics, that positive change came because of him. We founded www.LiamsLife.org.
It’s been just over a year since we lost what felt like the ‘Meaning of Life’ itself. In addition to finding our way back to a happy life, we have been working hard to make that difference in our son’s name. We’ve had a Super Bowl commercial, we’ve given out 3 full-ride scholarships to a Nano program, specializing in Autonomous cars (self-driving cars), written a book, created a social media campaign that went viral, written a children’s book and done a ton of public speaking at high schools and with law enforcements, amongst many things.
Most of the work we have done has been captured by the amazing team at Winters Rock Entertainment, who have embedded themselves with us in order to make a change by creating a feature length documentary film titled Letters to Liam.
Did you know that every 53 minutes, someone is killed in this country by a drunk driver? That’s the equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every single week. Drunk driving doesn’t care how old you are. It doesn’t care what the color of your skin is. It doesn’t care what God you pray to or what party you voted for. It doesn’t care how much money you have or what your 401K looks like. It affects all aspects of society. In fact, it will affect 66% of the US population at some point. Here’s your chance to get involved in the fight. Help us end drunk driving. Help us save lives by helping us to share our story. Please support our film at: https://igg.me/at/letterstoliam/x/17271223
Sincerely,
Marcus Kowal
