A Mothers Tears

Leslie Sanders
Son: Gregory P. Sanders

You can't get more hometown than Hobart, Indiana. Gregory Sanders grew up in what his mother Leslie calls a "Norman Rockwell, Cape Cod house on a tree-lined street. It's so flat in Hobart that you can see for miles in the summer. In the winter when those miles are covered with snow, the moonlight is reflected back up to the sky, brightening up the night.

Trains pass through Hobart, carrying coal and iron ore to the steel mills, and gigantic rolls of steel back out. You hear the trains more than anything else there, hear their whistles blowing. You quickly learn that you have to time your day around them if you have to go to the other side of town. If you miscalculate by 5 or 10 seconds, it can throw your entire schedule off. When Greg died, the entire town came to a standstill, as 2,000 friends and relatives remembered this 19-year-old.
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Mary Huxley
Son: Gregory P. Huxley, Jr.

Visitors to the Huxley home in upstate New York tell them, "You're living out in the boonies!" It's deceptive, having 15 houses out in front on the same street... the Huxley house sits on five acres and has a backyard that stretches all the way to the Black River, providing a peaceful flowing, reassuring sound at night. Greggy, as Mary still calls him, used to walk out the back door, a towel or a fishing pole over his shoulder, and stroll down to the river for a day of swimming or fishing. If it was a nice evening, he's just walk out the back door, pitch a tent, and sleep in the large backyard. The Huxley family often sat out there around a bonfire near Greggy's "camp site" with their two-story house obscuring the few street lights, allowing them to sit, listen to the river, and watch sparks rise up to the heavens. It's a region of the country where it snows six months out of the year. Mary tells the story of how she once had to shovel a foot of snow off the sidewalk on Halloween, so she could take Greggy and his brother and sisters out trick-or-treating. It sometimes snows as late as April, as it did on Greg's funeral, snowflakes falling gently on the casket of a boy Mary, until she dies, will remember as 19-year-old Greggy.
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Karen Long
Son: Zachariah W. Long

There's something special about growing up on a 47-acre farm in Pennsylvania. The smell of freshly cut hay and corn-you remember that all your life. Every time you see a small boy playing on a farm you pass, it comes back to you. You remember a little boy who used to lie down in the fields after the sun set. A little boy who saw every star that was ever born. A moon that was so bright, he could walk from the farmhouse to the barn without a flashlight.

It's a two-story farmhouse, where Zach grew up, back from the road, with a tree-lined driveway leading up to the house. Barn in the back, with tractors and farm equipment well within sight. Zach had toy tractors on his dresser upstairs, toys that remain there to this day.
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Amelia Estrella
Son: Ruben Estrella-Soto Jr.

(en Español)
He grew up in a very simple house in El Paso, Texas. It was all that the family could afford after migrating from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Small, but very sunny...full of bright light from the house's many windows. It had a front yard for Ruben and his brother and sister to play in...a very quiet neighborhood populated mostly by elderly people who, as they slowly strolled past it, smiled at the little children playing in the yard next door It was a childhood parents long to give to their children.

Five years before Ruben joined the military, the family moved to a larger, roomier house. Nothing fancy, but on a lot large enough for a flagpole. On September 11, 2001, Ruben's mother flew a flag from that pole. Ruben was only 15 at the time, but maybe he already knew. "Mom, what will you do when they bring you my flag?" "You shouldn't be joking about that, Ruben." "Mom, my flag will be huge."
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Pam Halling
Son: Jesse M. Halling

Jesse was born near heaven in Salt Lake City, skiing by the age of four in the mountains above the city. Up on the slopes you can just smell the air ... crisp... crisp and clean. It has almost a freshly washed scent to it... a scent mothers who've lost their sons remember for the rest of their lives. At night in Salt Lake, as a four- and five-year-old, Jesse would go out on the deck of his family's house and look at the stars, and dream of flying, turning his crayons to his paper spread out on the deck, and drawing fighter jets. When older, living for a time in San Francisco, away from the city lights, his mother would turn off the house lights so Jesse could be with his stars. Then she'd fill the house with classical music, and Jesse and his sister would fall asleep to it. Jesse took Mozart and Tchaikovsky with him to Iraq where he went to sleep one last night, to be with his much beloved stars.
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Jean Prewitt
Son: Kelley S. Prewitt

Growing up in a strict Christian home in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, Kelley couldn't have had a more Southern-upper-middle-class upbringing. His father, acting as the general contractor, built the family's house, providing everyone with their a separate bedroom, with a finished basement below as an extra family room. The swimming pool in the backyard provided a gathering place for other kids in the neighborhood who dashed across the safe street to dive in, often challenging each other to see who could hold their breath the longest. Kelley played soccer throughout his growing-up years, starting when he was five-with his father as his coach, and his mother, Jean, as his biggest fan, he couldn't have asked for more. As a career United States Postal Service Worker, Jean was able to take time off from work to cheer him on at every game. Must have been fun when they won championships, and mom and dad would drive the team to another town for a game, allowing them the luxury of sleeping (if they really got any) in motel rooms, dining in restaurants, and then diving into the motel's swimming pool, splashing and shouting the whole time. It was a wonderful life, which, according the United States Army, ended instantly on April 6 as the result of an explosion in Iraq. This comforting belief came to a jolting end one month later when, on the day before Mother's Day, May 10, 2003, a New York Times reporter embedded with Kelley's unit in Iraq wrote a front-page story detailing how Kelley had actually been hit in the leg by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), leaving a fist-sized hole, from which he slowly bled to death over a period of four hours, screaming for help, comforted by comrades. A slow, painful death. Kelly's mother read the story as millions of others did. She is no longer a fan of the War in Iraq.
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Sue Niederer
Son: Seth J. Dvorin

It wasn't the first neighborhood Seth and his mother Sue lived in but their second that will forever house the love between the two of them. Gathering up what she could after a divorce, Sue pulled up stakes and moved six-year-old Seth to South Brunswick, to live in "the house that Seth and I owned." A brand new community filled with the scent of new trees, new grass, new blossoms, and, more importantly, the sounds of a neighborhood filling up with young new families, and lots of other six-year-olds. In many ways, it was a little United Nations, with its grand mix of cultures. Everybody just hung out each other's home...made no difference if you were a single parent or married. It was a warm community where in the summers everybody barbecued. When the winter snow fell, everyone would grab a shovel, and dig in...ending, of course, in a bigger snowball fight than the real United Nations had ever had. Everything in Seth's room was blue, from the carpet on the floor to the window blinds to the paint on the ceiling. They were in a new house when Seth was called back to Iraq. Before he left, Sue showed Seth three paint chips. Each of them was blue. The only modification to the house came from the war in Iraq-an empty bedroom.
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Rosa Gonzalez
Son: Jorge Gonzales

(en Español)
It's quiet in the Gonzalez neighborhood, but not inside the house, never was, not with six children running around growing up together. They grew up in El Monte, outside of Los Angeles, in a three-bedroom house...lemon tree right in front as well as a big nut tree, ripe for climbing by the children. But it was more fun in Jorge's room, what with the videogame players hanging from the bunk bed that he and Mario slept in. They even shared the same crib, one after the other, being born a year apart. Everyone there grew up together, in the three-bedroom house, which now is home to Jorge's widowed wife, Jasty, and his one-year-old son, Alonso, there along with the memories of Jorge.
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Home	Rosa Gonzalez	Pam Halling	Amelia Estrella
	Karen Long	Mary Huxley	Leslie Sanders
		Jean Prewitt	Sue Niederer