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Authors: Judy L. Mandel
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more I read, the more I see that she had a burning desire to tell the story, and I’m hoping I can do it justice for her. I know, however, that some of the story will be information she never told me—and might not have wanted me to tell.
I’ve skimmed over these notes before, but I never really gave them attention. Now, they look different to me as possible puzzle pieces. In my mother’s stark accounts of that awful afternoon, she remembered her horror over and over again:
I can still hear my little girl’s scream—a cry I shall never ever forget and the only cry in her short life I was unable to answer.
The devastation of the loss of our beautiful seven-year-old daughter, coupled with the heartbreaking condition of Linda, was more than any human being could bear all at once. But two people as close as my husband and I could cry to each other and lend one another support. When we met Donna’s friends who were growing up and getting on with their lives, we felt Donna was cheated, and Linda was cheated of a normal life. And so were we.
I’m surprised to read about my parents’ closeness in my mother’s notes and wonder if it was more of a wish than a fact. It’s one of many ill-shaped fragments of the story that I begin to realize won’t fit into my version of their puzzle, or my own.
My mother and father surely must have had fortitude to make it through such an ordeal together, but I remember their fighting most vividly. Much of the time it was about money. They werealways trying to make ends meet, and there was an undercurrent of resentment about not getting an adequate settlement from the airline for Linda’s ongoing care. My father was always the affable joke teller when we had guests, but his jokes were often aimed at my mother. And I never saw my father put an arm around his wife, reach out to hold her hand, or steal a kiss at the kitchen sink.
Thinking of my parents’ complicated relationship, I wonder whether my father’s inattention was an impetus for my mother to look elsewhere for validation as a woman, and I am starting to recognize a similar pattern in my own life. There was a persistent rumor about an affair with our “Uncle Jack.” He was the father of Sheila, Donna’s best friend who had been visiting on the day of the crash and who had also been terribly burned in the accident. Jack was a balding, soft-spoken, gentle man with heavy black-rimmed glasses. He was taller and broader than my father. Uncle Jack would stoop over slightly to get down to my size whenever he talked to me when I was a child. Along with Sheila, he had an older son, Michael. Jack owned a successful sporting goods store.
When we moved from our apartment to our new house, Jack bought a house on the next street over. He was a member of the swim club we joined so that Linda could have the swimming exercise she needed for her legs. We went there every day in the summer for quite a few years, and Jack was ever present. For a while, I remember he and his wife (also named Florence) would come over often for coffee in the evenings. Then we only saw Jack by himself, usually when he brought Linda and me presents. Myfather would nearly growl when Jack showed up at our house. I also remember occasionally stopping by his store.
S TUCK INSIDE A yellowed envelope between the pages of one of my parents’ old photo albums, I find three wrinkled tickets to Radio City Music Hall. When I was eight, my mother packed our pj’s, underwear, and extra clothes, and she called a taxi that drove us to the bus stop—without my father. The bus ride to New York City was only about a half hour.
I had asked Linda why my father wasn’t coming with us.
“I think Mommy’s mad at him.”
“We’ll go to the Empire State Building today, and I got us tickets for Radio City tomorrow,” my mother told us while we unpacked our suitcases at the hotel.
Later, we went to lunch at the Horn & Hardart Automat. I loved that you could see all the
I’ve skimmed over these notes before, but I never really gave them attention. Now, they look different to me as possible puzzle pieces. In my mother’s stark accounts of that awful afternoon, she remembered her horror over and over again:
I can still hear my little girl’s scream—a cry I shall never ever forget and the only cry in her short life I was unable to answer.
The devastation of the loss of our beautiful seven-year-old daughter, coupled with the heartbreaking condition of Linda, was more than any human being could bear all at once. But two people as close as my husband and I could cry to each other and lend one another support. When we met Donna’s friends who were growing up and getting on with their lives, we felt Donna was cheated, and Linda was cheated of a normal life. And so were we.
I’m surprised to read about my parents’ closeness in my mother’s notes and wonder if it was more of a wish than a fact. It’s one of many ill-shaped fragments of the story that I begin to realize won’t fit into my version of their puzzle, or my own.
My mother and father surely must have had fortitude to make it through such an ordeal together, but I remember their fighting most vividly. Much of the time it was about money. They werealways trying to make ends meet, and there was an undercurrent of resentment about not getting an adequate settlement from the airline for Linda’s ongoing care. My father was always the affable joke teller when we had guests, but his jokes were often aimed at my mother. And I never saw my father put an arm around his wife, reach out to hold her hand, or steal a kiss at the kitchen sink.
Thinking of my parents’ complicated relationship, I wonder whether my father’s inattention was an impetus for my mother to look elsewhere for validation as a woman, and I am starting to recognize a similar pattern in my own life. There was a persistent rumor about an affair with our “Uncle Jack.” He was the father of Sheila, Donna’s best friend who had been visiting on the day of the crash and who had also been terribly burned in the accident. Jack was a balding, soft-spoken, gentle man with heavy black-rimmed glasses. He was taller and broader than my father. Uncle Jack would stoop over slightly to get down to my size whenever he talked to me when I was a child. Along with Sheila, he had an older son, Michael. Jack owned a successful sporting goods store.
When we moved from our apartment to our new house, Jack bought a house on the next street over. He was a member of the swim club we joined so that Linda could have the swimming exercise she needed for her legs. We went there every day in the summer for quite a few years, and Jack was ever present. For a while, I remember he and his wife (also named Florence) would come over often for coffee in the evenings. Then we only saw Jack by himself, usually when he brought Linda and me presents. Myfather would nearly growl when Jack showed up at our house. I also remember occasionally stopping by his store.
S TUCK INSIDE A yellowed envelope between the pages of one of my parents’ old photo albums, I find three wrinkled tickets to Radio City Music Hall. When I was eight, my mother packed our pj’s, underwear, and extra clothes, and she called a taxi that drove us to the bus stop—without my father. The bus ride to New York City was only about a half hour.
I had asked Linda why my father wasn’t coming with us.
“I think Mommy’s mad at him.”
“We’ll go to the Empire State Building today, and I got us tickets for Radio City tomorrow,” my mother told us while we unpacked our suitcases at the hotel.
Later, we went to lunch at the Horn & Hardart Automat. I loved that you could see all the
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