And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) (63 page)

I am much more serene than I used to be. I value peace and quiet. I used to get so upset by a leaky faucet, and then by the inefficient repairman who came late to fix it, and didn't. No longer. I have perspective now. I ask myself if anybody's going to die because of it. If not, it isn't worth getting steamed about. That's my bottom line now—if anybody will die. From where I sit, there really
isn't that much to get upset about. When I'm stuck in a traffic jam, I look around at the people honking and screaming in the other cars, and I wish they could see that being five minutes late to a meeting isn't significant.

I think I value life itself more now. I am more aware of its gifts than I used to be. A beautiful sunny day makes me soar with happiness. Biting into a ripe peach is cause for ecstasy. On the other hand, a gray day can fill me with more sadness than it once did. I guess I just
feel
more than I used to. I feel the joy of others and the pain of others. My tears continue to flow freely. I don't try to stifle them. I'm not ashamed to feel compassion.

My healing is not complete. I still jump whenever the phone rings—somehow I still instinctively feel it's my child calling for help, help I cannot give her. I still have hurts. It hurts that my Nancy suffered so and brought suffering to my other children. It hurts that her gifts went for nothing: it's not as if we have too many brilliant, compassionate people in this world. It hurts that we couldn't save her. Some wounds will never heal. I know that as long as I live, Nancy's birthday will be a bad day for me. So will the day of her death.

Frank has changed, too. He doesn't push himself at work like he used to. It isn't important to him anymore to be a big shot. He is content to do less and to enjoy it more. We have both learned to savor life. Recently, I noticed him sitting on the deck in the sun reading the paper. He sat there like that for hours. He didn't used to be able to do that. He is also more communicative. He used to get moody in the old days, withdrawn, closed off. Now he is much more open. He airs his feelings.

We crave each other's company. We're like newlyweds together. We share and talk and love with incredible zeal. We enjoy doing things together. We take long walks together, work out at a health club together, cook nice meals together. We finally took our first trip to Europe.

We truly enjoy Suzy and David and appreciate their individual gifts. We love their company. At the same time, we enjoy the fact that they're basically on their own now. Independence is as wonderful for us as it is for them. I think that Suzy and David, both of whom are now older than Nancy ever lived to be, understand that.

I think the four of us communicate pretty well now. We're a warm open family—at least, much more so than we used to be. We respect one another's feelings and are sensitive to them. You won't
see us bickering or picking at each other like other families. Our tendency to behave or make decisions based on Nancy's presence is gradually being erased.

“The hardest thing for the family wasn't Nancy's death,” David observed recently. “It was all of those years with her in the middle and the four of us on the outside. It has taken a long time not to be that way, not to hold back our affections. Now I believe the four of us are genuinely happy together. If our story has a happy ending, and I think it does, that's what it is.”

Relations between Suzy and David have begun to thaw. David has only one sister now. He cherishes her that much more. It has not been easy for Suzy to openly love him back. Recently she was able to say to him, “You know what? You're my brother, and I love you.” She could not, however, put her arms around him.

She is now twenty-three. Still finding herself, she has yet to cut completely loose from Nancy's influence. Suzy still feels big sister Nancy looking over her shoulder. She didn't finish up at Philadelphia College of Art. Instead, like Nancy, she moved to Colorado. She lived in Aspen for a while, supporting herself as a waitress. Recently she moved to New York. She has an apartment in Greenwich Village, is working, and is considering resuming her college education.

She has some challenges ahead of her. She still resists looking back, examining the hurts, searching for explanations. She is, for instance, bitterly opposed to my writing this book. I have told her it is necessary, and hopefully she will one day understand why.

David got into the University of Pennsylvania, our alma mater. His grades for his senior year of high school were naturally a bit spotty. However, his admissions officer wrote a very sensitive letter of recommendation on David's behalf. The letter detailed David's family crisis and the mature way in which David handled it. I believe the school admitted him on the strength of that letter. David is twenty-one now. He has a mustache and a girlfriend. He lives off campus in an apartment with a gang of other fellows. They have mustaches and girlfriends, too. He is boisterous, athletic, and does well in his classes. Truly, David seems remarkably well adjusted considering all he's been through. “I used to be dominated by Nancy's presence,” he told me recently. “I couldn't break away from it. Now I can talk about her but walk away from it. I'm not detached. I still cry. But I'm not controlled by it.”

Sometimes David thinks he'd like to be a psychologist when he
graduates. I'm told this is not an uncommon ambition for the youngest member of a family that has had troubles. Other times, he thinks he'd like to be a chef. Whichever direction he chooses, we're confident it will be the right one for him.

With help and love and fresh commitment, we have all begun to heal. We cannot erase the scars. We cannot rewrite the past. We cannot forget. But we can get on with the rest of our lives.

Ultimately, time does heal, too. There is no other explanation for the small miracle that happened to me one recent night.

Frank and I were at a neighborhood zoning council meeting. There were about five hundred concerned citizens there. As I listened to a speaker I became acutely aware of the sound of an infant gurgling in the row behind me. Wary, I turned in my seat to find a beautiful little baby girl nestled contentedly in her mother's arms.

I didn't get upset. I didn't see my baby Nancy with needle marks on her hands. I was not overcome by incredible pain and sadness. Instead I just saw a lovely little baby girl, her whole life ahead of her.

I turned farther around in my seat and touched the baby's arm. I stroked the soft, pink skin inside her forearm, and the tops of her tiny hands. I willed them to be forever free of scars. She grabbed at my index finger with her fist and smiled at me.

Frank noticed what was happening and turned to watch.

“What's her name?” I whispered to the baby's mother.

“Amy,” the mother whispered back.

Amy held on to my finger until the meeting was over and people were getting up and starting to leave.

“She's a lovely baby,” I told the mother.

She thanked me.

“My daughter was murdered,” I said. “She was a heroin addict. Looking at babies, touching them, has been very painful for me. But I'm touching Amy. It doesn't hurt.”

“Would you like to hold her?” she asked me.

“Could I, please?”

She handed the baby over to me, tears forming in her eyes.

I pressed Amy over my heart. She nestled her head into the side of my neck, clutched at the collar of my blouse with her hands. She looked into my eyes, trusting me.

I stroked her soft skin, smelled her sweet baby smell, kissed her silky hair and face. It was just the two of us there, exactly like it
had been the first time I'd held my baby Nancy in my arms. Only that time I'd been saying hello to Nancy. Now I was saying good-bye. I was letting go.

Yes, there was a Nancy. Yes, there will be more Nancys. But not all babies will feel her pain. Their world need not be one of sadness. For them there is a future. There is hope. There is a world out there filled with beauty and happiness and love.

“Do you know how beautiful you are, Amy?” I murmured to her, my throat constricting. “You are. You're a beautiful baby. You beautiful, beautiful baby.”

I reluctantly handed her back to her mother and thanked the woman for giving me this moment. She tried to say something to me, but couldn't. She was crying.

Then I turned to Frank. Tears were streaming down his face, too. Tears of joy.

With special thanks for all their help and encouragement:

Milton and Becky Stoloff, Kevin Fee and Eagleville Hospital, Susan Davis, Janet and Myron Waxman, Marsha and Arthur Kramer, Bonnie and Michael Peretz, Mary Ann Caruso, Paula Bram Amar, Ph.D., Lillian Kravis, M.D., Robin Tower, Julia Cass, Robert Krauss, Ellen Portner, Dean Becker, Sylvia and John Walsh.

In sincere gratitude for those who believed in me and my book:

Marc Jaffe, and Peter Gethers of Random House, and my agents, Morton Janklow and Anne Sibbald and to Sue Pollack, who brought us all together.

And to my mother: (Nov. 20 '09–March 2 '83). Thank you for the legacy of survival.

Deborah Spungen
received her Master of Social Service and Master of Law and Social Policy degrees from Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work in May 1989. She is the executive director and founder of the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Frank.