My daughter died 20 years ago today.

[PatSeg]

77. I've spent many years working on our family tree

and I put some extra effort into the "forgotten souls" whenever I can. A few weeks ago, I found the senior yearbook photo of the oldest son who died and I was able to get a better idea of what he looked like. The tagline with the photo read, "Why aren't they all contented like me?", which gave me a small glimpse into his personality. I researched and found a long newspaper article about the deaths and I sent away for the coroner's reports. It's not a lot, but it says, "you are not forgotten".

I know the deaths were very painful to a lot of people and there undoubtedly was a whole lot of guilt involved. A deaf father who kept a loaded gun in the house, an irritable sister with a young baby, who refused to let her brother come home with her the day before the accident - "Not this weekend, I am too busy", and a mother out of the house taking care of other people's children at the time her own children died. I can just imagine the "what ifs" that must have played in their minds.

I can understand the pain being so unbearable that you want to erase it, but in the process, they erased two human beings. Eventually, of course, there was no one left who remembered them, so I've tried to piece together a picture of who they were as best I can.

Times have really changed and a lot of people have changed their attitudes about death and loss.