An adoring grandpa was hit by a truck and killed on a dangerous Sacramento road
José Luis Silva, a gregarious former Marine who had recently learned to temper his booming voice so that he could speak gently to his baby granddaughter, was fatally hit by a U-Haul truck while riding his motorcycle Aug. 25. He was 55.
The deadly crash occurred at J and 24th streets in midtown. Sacramento considers both roadways part of its “high-injury network” — those city streets where the most fatal and severe injury crashes occur.
UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows one crash in 2020 and three in 2021 led to severe injuries on J between 19th and 29th streets. On Nov. 1, 2021, a fifth crash at 29th killed Sharon Jones, a 58-year-old pedestrian.
Such deaths are almost always preventable. In light of that fact, Sacramento leaders made a “Vision Zero” promise in 2017 to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027.
Gabby Miller, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Works, said that the volume of loss is “deeply tragic” and officials are “diligently working to address the corridors with the highest number of fatalities and severe injuries.” Although California’s capital has made progress on some safety-enhancing projects — including the parking-protected bike lane on J Street — officials remain far from their goal.
Silva was at least the 17th person to die on a city street in 2024.
In 2021, the state Office of Traffic Safety said that Sacramento had the most traffic fatalities and injuries per capita of the 15 largest cities in California. The state’s largest city, Los Angeles, which is seven times as large as Sacramento, came in 13th place.
Road safety issues are rarely addressed with urgency in California’s capital, but that may change. At a recent City Council meeting, Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela asked about the status of a “quick-build” program that could address safety issues without the yearslong timeline of typical city road projects, and Miller said staff were reviewing consultant proposals for the program.
Meanwhile, Sacramento’s death toll continues to rise. This year, traffic collisions have killed Mattie Nicholson, 56, Kate Johnston, 55, Jeffrey Blain, 59, Aaron Ward, 40, Michael Kennedy, 40, Federico Zacarias Cambrano, 28, Marvin Moran, 22, Sam Dent, 41, Daniel Morris, 38, Terry Lane, 55, David Rink, 51, Tyler Vandehei, 32, James Lind, 54, Jose Valladolid Ramirez, 36, Larry Winters, 76, Sau Voong, 84, and, in quick succession after Silva’s death, Geohaira “Geo” Sosa, 32, and Kaylee Xiong, 18.
Miller said that there are currently no safety projects planned for the stretch of J Street where Silva was killed.
There were, however, votive candles forming a heart at the intersection. They were left by his sisters.
A death sentence and a second chance
Silva was born Nov. 2, 1968, to Ofelia and Jesus Silva. Forty-eight years later, he almost died. The seven and a half years since his near-fatal illness took on a special kind of sweetness.
Before his liver transplant in 2017, Silva could be rigid. He had risen to the rank of sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps in the ’90s, and he carried some of that Marine persona into his personal life. He could be strict with his daughters, Madeline and Kyra. He had married and divorced twice.
Then, in 2016, he severely injured his knee, and he couldn’t seem to heal. He was in his late 40s, and when he stopped drinking, he grew even more unwell.
Doctors gave him a frightening explanation: He had cirrhosis. Without a liver transplant, he was going to die.
Madeline was turning 21, and she left North Carolina and moved into his house in Sacramento so that they could spend the last few months of his life together. They were grateful for that, at least. He bought a 2017 Honda Gold Wing so that he’d have a brand-new motorcycle before his death.
Then, incredibly, he learned he would receive a life-saving liver transplant in March 2017.
Silva viewed everything that came after as “his second life” — one he refused to waste.
An unexpected love story
Silva wanted to travel, and he considered moving into an RV to roam the country, according to his daughter Madeline. He wanted to have as much joy as possible in his life. And, after two divorces, he swore to his daughter that he would never marry again.
But he did log in to his Bumble account, and after his first date with a woman who loved to dance as much as he did, he took it all back.
When he and the future Michelle Silva met in October 2018, the then 49-year-old was on her second chance at life, too. She was treated for breast cancer in 2015, two years before Silva received his liver transplant. Like him, she was a parent, and she’d been married and divorced twice.
The plan had been to meet at a bar to watch a game, but they couldn’t pay attention to whatever was on TV: They were too interested in each other. Michelle struggled to describe the feeling, but neither one of them had ever experienced anything like it. They were, she said, “instantly best friends.”
That first night, they relocated from the bar where they met to a restaurant so they could keep talking and the date wouldn’t have to end.
“We just knew,” she said, “we were each other’s person.”
Madeline said her father came home and told her, “I think I might have to get married.”
Just a few months later, he pulled Michelle’s daughter, Lunden Almquist, then 26, into Michelle’s room while she was cooking dinner. Very seriously, he told her he wanted to propose to her mother and asked what she thought. They had a long conversation. Although the relationship had moved fast and Lunden felt protective of her mother, she gave him her blessing. In March 2019, Silva asked Michelle to marry him.
On Oct. 12, 2019, the pair held a cozy wedding at a friend’s house. In her vows, Michelle promised to always laugh at José’s dad jokes. Sometimes, Michelle said, the two of them would make each other laugh so hard before bed that they woke up Bandit, their black-and-white heeler with anxiety, who barked at them to pipe down.
Together, they bought a little trailer for camping trips. Silva had a big custom sticker made up for the front that bore the nickname they gave it: “The Love Pod.”
A family man became a grandfather
During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Silvas hunkered down. “It was all about family,” Michelle said. José’s mother lives in Woodland where she raised him, and most of his seven living brothers and sisters haven’t strayed far.
He would take any opportunity to celebrate his family. About two years ago, he and Madeline got matching tattoos: skeleton versions of the two of them riding a motorcycle that had sunflowers for wheels. The tattoo artist inked Madeline’s name underneath the image on his forearm.
In the spring of 2023, she gave him a piece of news he’d been waiting for: She was pregnant with his first grandchild. He wept tears of joy, Madeline said.
Before she gave birth to Ofelia, he started buying two of everything — a car seat for Madeline, a stroller for Madeline, a playpen for Madeline, and one of each for his place.
As Madeline phrased it, “He went grandpa-crazy over her.”
Silva was a boisterous man with a loud voice, and when he first spoke in front of Ofelia, he scared her. So, in his mid-50s, he learned to speak gently so that he could spend time with his twinkly-eyed newborn granddaughter. He frequently popped over to the Antelope home his daughter shares with her fiancé, Michael Haworth, to see Ofelia. Often, he was holding flowers.
The day he was hit by a truck and killed on J Street, he spent the morning with the smiley baby, now 7 months old.
Silva had begun stashing toys for Ofelia at his house. She was still much too small to play with the Lego table and the little scooter that looked like a bee, but the grandfather couldn’t help himself. He’d watch her grow into them.
This story was originally published September 10, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
