Review: I’ll See You Again – Jackie Hance

In a powerful and intimate memoir, Jackie Hance shares her story of unbearable loss, darkest despair, and—slowly, painfully, and miraculously—her cautious return to hope and love. Until the horrific car accident on New York’s Taconic State Parkway that took the lives of her three beloved young daughters, Jackie Hance was an ordinary Long Island mom, fulfilled by the joyful chaos of a household bustling with life and chatter and love. After the tragedy, she was “The Taconic Mom,” whose unimaginable loss embodied every parent’s worst nightmare. Suddenly, her lifelong Catholic faith no longer explained the world. Her marriage to her husband, Warren, was ravaged by wrenching grief and recrimination. Unable to cope with the unfathomable, she reinvented reality each night so that she awoke each morning having forgotten the heartbreaking facts: that Emma, age 8; Alyson, age 7; and Katie, age 5, were gone forever. They were killed in a minivan driven by their aunt, Jackie’s sister-in-law, Diane Schuler, while returning from a camping weekend on a sunny July morning. I’ll See You Again chronicles the day Jackie received the traumatizing phone call that defied all understanding, and the numbed and torturous events that followed—including the devastating medical findings that shattered Jackie to the core and shocked America. But this profoundly honest account is also the story of how a tight-knit community rallied around the Hances, providing the courage and strength for them to move forward. It’s a story of forgiveness, hope, and rebirth, as Jackie and Warren struggle to rediscover the possibility of joy by welcoming their fourth daughter, Kasey Rose Hance. The story that Jackie Hance shares for the first time will touch your heart and warm you to the power of love and hope.

Series:
Release Date: March 4th 2014
Publisher: Gallery Books
Source: Provided by Publisher
Reviewer: Joelle
Rating:

Buy the book at:

Reviewer’s Thoughts

If you have ever read any other reviews I have written, you know I love a happy ending in my books. Unfortunately, I knew this book would not really have one of those, but I was interested in Jackie Hance’s story nonetheless. I hope I never have to experience the loss of a child. I can’t imagine how one ever recovers from such a loss. It took tremendous courage to tell this story and Hance is brutally honest throughout.

From the time I heard about this story on the news I have been curious how this seemingly preventable tragedy could have even happened. As one review I read on Goodreads mentioned, this book doesn’t really offer any answers as to why Jackie’s sister-in-law would have had alcohol & pot in her system at 10:30 in the morning expecially when she would be driving her own young children and her three nieces. Apparently, we will never know since everyone in the car died except Jackie’s nephew.

Hance reveals the emotional roller coaster she embarks upon after the death of her three beloved daughters. She details the struggles her marriage suffers, her thoughts of suicide, her worries about the public scrutiny she was constanly under, all the way to her subsequent pregnancy of her fourth child. I could understand all of the emotions she described–anguish, guilt when she did pull herself together enough to “have fun” (how could she ever laugh or smile or celebrate a holiday again when her girls weren’t ever going to be able to do the same again?) I cried right along with her (I’m crying again just thinking about it!). I was glad she came to terms–at least as much I can ever imagine one does–with the losss she experienced.

I would recommend this book, but be prepared for a tear-jerker. I think it would be a valuable read for anyone that’s grieving, as Hance does provide some hope of “recovery”. The unanswerred questions and mystery that surround the accident are hard to accept, but if Hance can move past it I guess we all have to. I wish her and her family & supportive friends well.