I'll See You Again Part 28

"Are you sure?" Deana asked. Deana's children were the same ages as my girls and she had thrown herself into the planning. "This is probably harder for you than you realize."

"No, it's fine. I'm okay." I felt my smile wavering. "I guess I'm just getting tired."

I tried to look enthusiastic. It was all so nice and generous and good. But even a million baskets wouldn't bring back my girls.

Please get me out of here ...

There was no way I could get out of May 22. That I survived the whole day without collapsing, screaming, or sobbing in public is a testament to strong will and modern medicine. I had already learned how to make myself go numb in order to get through any ordeal. And with thousands of people expected to show up for the festivities, "getting through" was the best I could hope for.

The morning was all about the races, and the sheer number of people who showed up-more than 1,200-was overwhelming. We started with a Peewee Race for children under seven, who ran over a bridge and got medals and cupcakes when they finished. Even I had to admit it was cute-most of them walked away holding their award in one hand and a cupcake in the other. Next was a one-mile Fun Run called "Emma's Mile" that attracted loads of kids, from ten-year-olds to teenagers. Then a 5K race with close to a thousand runners and walkers, cheered on by live music from a teen band.

After the medals (lots of them) were given out, we regrouped for the afternoon, and for the first Hance Family Foundation Fun Day.

We had 250 volunteers, and around 3,000 people showed up at the now-beautiful Centennial Gardens. I wandered around saying h.e.l.lo to the girls' friends and cla.s.smates, their teachers and camp counselors, neighbors and storekeepers and people I knew from around town. This whole community of friends and family had mourned together in the face of our tragedy. Now, in the place where the girls had lived their short lives, people who had been so deeply affected by their loss wanted to find hope again, and they rallied around out of goodwill and genuine feeling. However much pain I felt, as I looked at all the familiar faces, full of kindness and purpose, I recognized the triumph of a town that could make such an effort to memorialize the girls.

There was so much going on that I couldn't take it all in. We had live music and games, face painting and mini-manicures. The New York Islanders hockey team had sent their mascot and arranged for games like slap shot. Children played on the "bouncies" that had been donated and took pictures with teens who had dressed up as fairy-tale characters. They made pictures in "Aly's Art Gallery" and hung them on a line with clothespins for everyone to see, then got costumes in "Katie's Corner" for dress-up games.

"Emma's spirit, Alyson's joy and Katie's innocence shone through on every face in the crowd," Bernadette wrote later on the foundation website.

By every measure it was a smashing success.

And yet I couldn't have been happier when it was over.

Eighteen

July. A whole year since the accident.

People gathered protectively around me as the day approached, but, oddly, it was the ordinary days that were harder to get through.

I wrote a letter to my friends on July 21:

"People often ask me if I feel better than I did a year ago. The answer, simply stated, is 'no.' My mind is much clearer, but with clarity comes a lot of heartache and anguish. I have cried every single day since the accident. Holding it in would be much worse, so I always allow myself to cry. I know what it is like to see life go on around you and not be able to get out of the quicksand that you feel you are drowning in."

For the previous twelve months, I had started many sentences with "Last year I went with the girls ..." or "Remember last year when the girls and I ..." Now I couldn't say that anymore, and I couldn't believe how much time had gone by since I had seen my girls. Instead of the pa.s.sing time healing the wounds, it just cut them deeper. I missed Katie's hugs and Emma's wisdom and Aly's smiles. When we still had our normal, daily routines together, I counted our time apart in minutes and hours, not weeks and months. And even those minutes had sometimes seemed like forever.

Katie will be in kindergarten all morning, I used to think. What will I do with all that time?

Now I had to reorient myself and think in terms of years.

Years without my girls.

I went to one meeting of a grief-counseling group for parents who had lost children. The mothers there were supportive and full of hope. But their devotion unnerved me.

"Your children stay with you forever," said one woman, who described a lovely ritual she had enjoyed that year on Mother's Day.

"How long since your daughter died?" I asked her.

"Twenty-two years next month," she said.

I felt my heart sink.

Twenty-two years?

I couldn't imagine two decades of living in pain without my girls. I wanted to run screaming from the room. Looking around at the mothers whose children had died ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, I felt myself gripped by fright. They seemed placid and peaceful-but they still attended this grief group.

Maybe it never gets better.

Warren wanted me to believe that our lives could get better, and after the lesson of Key West, he suggested we spend some of the summer by the ocean.

"You can't be depressed on a beach," he said hopefully, remembering my comment.

Melissa had decided she could never return to the beach club where we had been last summer, and she rented a house in the Hamptons. Warren and I stayed there for a while and then shared a house with Isabelle and Mark on Long Beach Island. Coddled again by the sound of waves and water and warmed by the sunshine, we made it through.

While we were at the beach, my mother stayed at the house in Floral Park, ostensibly to dog-sit our old wheaten terrier, Oliver. Mom had been depressed and struggling this year, so devastated at losing her grandchildren that I couldn't expect her to be able to comfort me, her daughter.

Looking after the dog gave her a purpose, and she eagerly offered to stay at the house when we escaped to the beach. Maybe being surrounded by the girls' familiar things gave her the comfort that it sometimes did me.

Early in the week, she called me at the beach to check in and see how we were doing.

"I guess you're okay with the swing set coming down," she said, just a slight edge of anxiety in her voice.

"What?" I asked, my voice rising in a shriek.

"Oh, um, you didn't know? I a.s.sumed you did. Your friend is here taking down the swing set. He said Warren wants it down."

I hung up and ran hysterically over to Warren.

"The girls loved that swing set!" I screamed, remembering when he had bought it for Emma's first birthday. "And we still have kids coming over to the house who play on it!"

"We have to take it down," Warren said. "It's getting old and could be dangerous. We can't risk someone playing on it and getting hurt."

I couldn't decide if "dangerous" was just an excuse for Warren to get rid of a memory he found painful to see every day. But he was insistent, so I let it go.

My mom's call prepared me, so when we got back from the beach, I braced myself to face a gaping hole in the yard. But our landscaper friend John hadn't just taken down the swing set-he had started a beautiful rock garden and waterfall to replace it. I immediately thought of the little j.a.panese rock gardens you put on your desk to help you relax. In the same spirit, this natural memorial exuded a sense of peace. For the next several weeks, John and Warren worked on the project together. When it was done, I still missed the swing set, but the tranquil garden created a corner for contemplation and calm.

As Year Two got under way, my once-wonderful life seemed to recede farther into the past. Birthdays, first day of school-we'd been through this cycle once, and everyone expected the second go-round would be easier. But it wasn't. It was like being adrift at sea in a rowboat-steady waves pulled me farther and farther away from the beautiful sh.o.r.e I had left behind, and I couldn't yet see any safe ground on the other side.