I'll See You Again Part 20

In typical Jeannine fashion, she cooked up more than dinner. Her town had an annual Turkey Trot, and since one of Warren's friends wanted to organize a running club for the Hance Family Foundation, this seemed like the place to launch it. A small gang of friends and neighbors would run five miles in honor of Emma, Alyson, and Katie-wearing T-shirts to show their support and raising money with every step. Warren insisted that he and I should run, too.

"Ugh, no," I groaned. "Do I have to?"

"Yup, you do," said Warren, an advocate of tough love.

"I only run with my running group," I protested, looking for any out. I wanted to stay in bed and cry on Thanksgiving morning, far away from any crowds. I didn't want to wear a T-shirt with the girls' picture and have people stare at me in public as I ran down a street.

"Well, everyone's going to be there, so you have no choice. You're running."

When Warren and I arrived Thanksgiving morning, the crowd running for the foundation had grown to forty or fifty. Everyone was wearing white T-shirts with a logo commemorating the girls. The warmth and enthusiasm were overwhelming, and as we took photos in our matching outfits, I started to cry. Emma, Alyson, and Katie had brought everyone together, and the race would be infused with their spirits.

I couldn't get too emotional, though, because Bernadette and Tara and all the other women in my usual running group surrounded me and brought me to the starting line. As we took off along the route, I heard bystanders cheering, and though I was sad, their goodwill seeped into my heart. I didn't think I had much to be grateful for on this holiday, but I suddenly felt very thankful for the goodness of the people running with me and the kindness of those lining the road.

Warren and I had one place to go between the run and Jeannine's dinner-the cemetery. I couldn't let a holiday pa.s.s without spending time with the girls, but so far, the visits had been difficult. The grave sites remained stark and I had cried on Emma's birthday, upset that people going there would see such a barren plot.

"The headstones aren't ready yet," Warren had said shakily, trying to explain.

"I don't care about excuses," I had said, sobbing. "We can't do this to them. The girls always looked so pretty when they went to school. The cemetery has to be pretty at all times."

So, on Thanksgiving, I walked tentatively toward the girls' graves-and then stopped, feeling another surge of grat.i.tude.

"It's so beautiful!" I said, turning to Warren.

He smiled, pleased and relieved. The headstones had finally been finished and laid, and our friend John Power, who is a landscape architect, had planted graceful trees and shrubs all around. The whole scene looked so peaceful and appealing that I felt a tiny bit of comfort. I fell to my knees and touched the fresh soil where John had done his wondrous transformation.

"I can't buy the girls dresses now or put ribbons in their hair," I said, brushing a smudge off the headstone. "All I can do is make sure it's beautiful here. This is the only place I can still take care of them."

Warren's eyes filled with tears. "John did a good job," he said. "He knew what it meant to you."

We lingered longer than usual, and for the first time I felt some peace being at the burial plots. I knew I would start spending time here with my girls again. John had turned it into a haven where I could come to be close to the girls, talk to them or read to them or leave them little gifts.

I managed better than I expected during Thanksgiving dinner at Jeannine's. She kept the mood casual, which took away some of the sting, and with just her immediate family, I didn't feel like a freak. But as I looked around at her very normal family, I wondered-as I so often did-who else had ever been in a situation as extreme as mine. I knew of other people who had lost one child, but to have a whole family wiped out seemed leagues beyond any probability. I was like a triple amputee-mutilated so severely that others wanted to look away. I felt like an oddity, an aberration, an abomination.

My pain was so deep that I couldn't imagine others had ever survived anything comparable. But I realized that through the centuries and across different parts of the world, mothers' hearts beat much the same. In thinking about the first Thanksgiving celebrated by early settlers, I realized that those Pilgrims must have lost children during the harsh conditions of the first brutal winter in the New World. The loss must have been as devastating for those seventeenth-century mothers as it was for me. But the Pilgrims had chosen to look forward and celebrate the good. As I took a bite of Jeannine's sweet potato ca.s.serole, I wondered how I could possibly do the same.

Thirteen

We had money pouring in right after the accident from people who had heard about Emma, Alyson, and Katie and wanted to do something. There are only so many flowers to send. Neighbors and friends had an urge to give, as did strangers from around the country who sent sympathy cards with unsolicited contributions. Often cards contained a crisp five-dollar bill or a wrinkled twenty. Older people sent shakily written checks and children put in coins from piggy banks. Personally, I could imagine being touched by a tragic story on TV and feeling sorry for the people involved, but to find their address, buy a card, write a note, put in money? It seemed stunning to me that so many people made the effort to show compa.s.sion for our family.

Warren worked hard to get the foundation started, and my running friend Bernadette pitched in with her usual energy. They set up an official board with friends and advisers. I initially stayed on the outskirts of the action, glad to have the foundation but still too dazed to do much thinking. The generosity was overwhelming. A Wall Street firm sent us $25,000-which left me jumping up and down in delight-and a middle school organized a book sale and gave us the $200 proceeds. We got a letter from a mom who said her five-year-old set up a lemonade stand with her cousins and raised $50 selling drinks, cookies, and brownies. She sent the check to the foundation along with a note: "I didn't know the family personally and I am saddened each day for them. They are amazing people to take such a sad ordeal and turn it into something positive to help others."

Another contribution came with a letter that read, "My heart goes out to Mrs. Hance. She is a role model of how to stay strong and brave throughout a tragic situation."

Strong and brave? Not a chance. Amazing? No way. I cried every day. I had meltdowns on a regular basis. Reading all the notes made me feel like a fraud. I didn't want to be a role model, I wanted to be a regular mom. Why would anyone look up to me when I stumbled at every step?

Though I struggled, coming up with projects for the Hance Family Foundation gave Warren a great sense of meaning and purpose. "You need to come to the meetings," he said to me one night when he came home, invigorated by what was being planned. "It's impressive what the foundation is doing."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Jackie. We can do a lot of good."

"Great. Good. Great that we're doing good," I said.

Meetings were hard for me and the whole business aspect-the bureaucratic lingo-made me shudder. For me this wasn't a business, it was about the girls.

But Warren was right on one level. With the mystifying twist our lives had taken, we had the chance to do good. But how? Families who lose a child to illness often want to help find a cure for the disease. We had happy, healthy children to memorialize, so it seemed natural that we help other children lead happy, healthy lives.

The foundation made its first contributions in the early fall following the accident. I remembered talking to the school superintendent at the wake and thought about how important learning had been to the girls, so we came up with the idea of providing books and supplies and school trip expenses for children whose families struggled to afford them. Our town had three elementary schools-two public and one parochial-which seemed perfect. Three schools, three girls, three hearts.

I also wanted to support a summer camp because the girls had loved their own camp experiences so much. Emma and Alyson had gone to camp at our beach club for three years and Katie for two. Brad and Melissa recommended a camp for disabled children that they knew about because they had volunteered there when they were young. I liked the idea immediately. Emma had been admired by her teachers for her constant kindness to the other children in her cla.s.s, and this seemed a great way to honor the respect and understanding she offered everyone.

Just two months after the accident, Emma, Alyson, and Katie-through the foundation-were already giving a boost to children in need.

A woman in town named Kate Tuffy came to me with an idea that the foundation launch a program to help build self-esteem and positive thinking in girls.

"I like that," I said.

"We can call it Beautiful Me," Kate suggested. I was in no condition to question anybody's plans, so I nodded dumbly and told her to go ahead.

Without knowing it, Kate had hit a topic dear to my heart. I grew up without much self-esteem, and I was determined that Emma, Alyson, and Katie wouldn't have the same problem. From the moment they were born, I tried to help them feel good about themselves-and about how they looked. I knew that for girls, unfair as it may be, the two are more closely linked than they should be.

Emma was naturally tall and thin, and during the summer, she would bop around the house in a bikini. One morning when she was just six years old, Alyson put on her own bathing suit, and when she looked in the mirror, her eyes filled with tears.

"I don't look like Emma," she said, rubbing a hand on her round tummy. "I have a belly like Poppy."

"Your belly isn't like Poppy's," I said, hugging her. "Everybody has their own shape. You don't look like Emma. I don't look like Daddy. Part of what's wonderful is that we're all individuals and we look like ourselves and n.o.body else."

"But I don't look good in the bikini," Alyson said.

"You're gorgeous," I told her. "But you don't have to wear a bikini just because Emma does."

"Then what should I wear?" she asked.

"Let's go find a bathing suit that you feel good in."

We went out shopping and Alyson picked a tankini that covered a little more of her tummy but was still a two-piece. She felt good in it and went to the beach proudly.

Giving my girls a positive self-image was high on my Mom To-Do list-and I kept at it every day. Our house was always happy and upbeat and I made sure the girls knew how much I loved them. I didn't want them struggling with body image the way I had. Now, with Beautiful Me, I could help other girls gain confidence.

Kate Tuffy worked with a therapist named Liz Munro to organize a three-cla.s.s curriculum, and almost immediately, dozens of girls signed up. The first sessions were held at a local church.