The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 18

A18 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Sunday, December 15, 1996 In Montoursville, stark grief 'i 1 iimmmmmmumimggufum, "lw wjiliui. iT" a 0 I -I ivv ffa It A yJ i rd JX.j..-:4 1 wLC Fm 1 Hfek I I I fl "I Lf The Philadelphia Inquirer PETER TOBIA 2S5 fl TCi' I 5 7 Steven Uzupis has dinner at home. He often finds himself cooking the way daughter Larissa used to. Ireney Weaver shows pictures of daughter Monica to her other daughter, Elissa, who is disabled. The sisters had shared a room.

MONTOURSVILLE from A1 jumbo jet was clowned by an explosion in the center fuel tank, without saying more of what would have caused the explosion. "It's too little, top late, as far as I'm concerned," said Weaver. "We just don't like the whole thingperiod." This holiday season, Weaver said, he and his wife, Ireney, have engaged in what he calls "the game of guilt" as have a number of other families here. The primary pawn for the Weavers was a dead aunt who willed the family the $1,500 used to pay for Monica's trip. "If she hadn't died and left the money, none of this would have happened," said Ireney.

For her part, Gail Merrifield remains convinced that if she had nol remarried, her daughter, Jacquelin A. Watson, 18, would still be alive. Afer all, she said, as a single mother, she could never have afforded a tour of France. At a survivors support meeting, Jeafa Dickey apologized to the other families because it was her daughter-in-law, French teacher Deborah Dickey, who had organized the trip. The families were quick to reassure her.

that they did not hold her at fault. She still has twinges of doubt. For weeks after the death of 15-year-old Larissa Uzupis, her father, Steven, felt it was wrong to indulge his. passion for long-distance running. "1 felt, this has nothing to do with Larissa, it does nothing in her memory," said Uzupis.

He finally returned to competitive running on Thanksgiving Day, traveling to Berwick to take part in a nine-mile run. Not entirely at ease Still, even as he races amid the picturesque hills surrounding his home in the Susquehanna Valley countryside outside Montoursville, he: is not entirely at ease. "1 know it's OK to have fun, to smile and to laugh," he said. "But there's some guilt attached to it." In those moments when unreasoning shame subsides and frustrations ease, the families focus, with loving clarity, on the memories of those they lost. There was the summer of 1995, when Jacquelin Watson, working as a lifeguard at a neighborhood pool I change gifts and attend church.

But the house, nestled near a rambunctious stream on a rural route in Lycoming County, will also be filled with thoughts of those who won't be present. The Dickeys' eldest son, Douglas, 47 and his wife, Deborah the French teacher 41, were among the five adults traveling with the French Club. "We always gave Doug and Debbie a gift certificate to the Lycoming Mall," said Jean. "This year, we'll donate the money to St. Luke's Lutheran Church.

Everything has changed. This has caused so much turmoil in our lives." "I don't see how it can get much harder," said Clair, gazing out his front window as two of his grandchildren played in the snow, In August, Deborah's sister, Catherine L. Cupp, and her husband, Daniel, were awarded custody of the couple's daughters, Lauren Nicole, 8, and Shannon Danielle, 5, upholding the Dickeys'. 1991 will. Doug and Debbie Dickey were married for nine years and their children were a constant source of fascination for the couple, said Jean Dickey.

For a time when Doug, a chemical-plant manager turned plastics salesman, was between jobs, he was responsible for the girls' daily care, and with some help from his mother, blossomed into a capable house-husband. "He got real close to the kids," said Jean. "He'd call and say, 'Mom, how do you make this or He'd be trying to cook something." friends gifts in the shape of angels (Montoursville's chosen symbol for the young lives lost in the crash). But these gestures are less for the pleasure of Robert and Ireney than for the well-being and consolation of their surviving children. And Robert, a sturdy, reserved man, can't hold back the emotion when he considers Christmas without bright, caring Monica.

"A 16-year-old kid snuffed out in the prime of her life," he said, his jaw working hard. "That should not happen." In Williamsport, four miles from the Weavers' home, Uzupis sat in his office looking at photographs of Larissa. His love and pride were evident and he seemed reassured by his daughter's smile. It had been a day when such reassurances were valued. Just a few hours earlier, La-rissa's mother, Michelle Barlow, had phoned to say that some of their daughter's personal effects had been returned.

"I cried half the way there," said Uzupis. He is convinced that Larissa did not die in pain, but when he saw her badly ripped suitcase, touched her saltwater-stained blouse, he was forced, again, to consider the very "I don't see how it can get much harder," says Clair Dickey (left) of the holiday. With him were wife Jean and grandson Trevor Stryker. 7 MO left alone, the mother and daughter grew closer, building a bond, said Merrifield, that only death could rupture. "She was my purpose in life," Merrifield said.

"One of my biggest concerns is where she is and what she is doing. I want to know as much as I can about heaven. I believe in God, but I ask, 'If this man is in such power, why doesn't He come down to the families of these children, who are in such suffering and pain, and say, 'It's OK'? Even before the death of Monica Weaver, her parents had reason to question the fairness of heaven. There was Elissa's disability, and their only son, Ryan, 12, was born with one kidney. As an infant, he nearly died of heart After Flight 800, Ireney said, she found herself wondering, "Lord, how tough do you want my skin to be?" The tight-knit, deeply religious Weavers are tough enough, said Ireney, "to keep going, to keep moving forward." Their house on the same Montoursville street where Gail and Jacque lived was decorated for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and the Weavers plan to celebrate Christmas by giving their family and IATsT I utwum I SB worst.

"It was a reminder of the nature of the crash," he said, "the violence of it." But Larissa, who moved in with her father after the break-up of her parents' marriage two years ago, would not have wanted him to ponder the ugliness of it. Not now, when Christmas is so near and there are trees to decorate and lights to place and wreaths to hang. She would have done those things, Iotcction fit t' I rrt wti'y Si- and so Uzupis feels compelled to do them, too, to keep the holidays as Larissa would have kept them. "If Larissa could come back, I know she would say, 'I'm in a better place than said Uzupis. "Go on with your life." In the while, split-level house where Clair and Jean Dickey have lived for 49 years, Christmas will go on as it has for so many seasons with the couple's children and grandchildren gathering to ex www.att.comucs yvyaB 1 "sw A I 7 i i i 1 i 1 i 'A Universal tttte plunged into the water to save a little' boy's life.

She never spoke a word about it, said her mother, until the pool manager sent the teenager a rose with a card reading, "Thanks for a job well-done." "1 asked her about it," said Merrifield, "and in her quiet little voice, she said, 'I had to save a boy the other That's how she was. She never held herself up." Uzupis, who is considering selling the rambling five-bedroom house he purchased as a place of comfort and security for his children, often finds himself doing things the way Larissa would have done them. Alone, after work, he prepared his dinner a small chicken breast seared in a drop of vegetable oil over high heat. Larissa, he said, always cooked this way. She did not eat red meat.

Alone with his thoughts That night he ate alone (Uzupis is divorced and his son, Steven, 17, and other daughter, Tamea, 13, were spending the night with their mother in Montoursville), listening to orchestral arrangements of old Christian hymns find that upbeat music annoys And all the while, he could feel her presence. "1 sit there, watching TV and I can Larissa walking through," he said. At the Weavers', Ireney held up a photograph of Monica. It drew an instant smile of recognition and excitement from Monica's sister, Elissa, 19, who has muscular dystro-phf'and uses a wheelchair, unable to walk or talk. The two had shared a room, and Monica was caring and patient, said Ireney.

That was hardly unusual. Last Christmas, the Weavers were saving money for the trip to France, so the only gifts they gave Monica were a new suitcase and some of her favorite makeup. "For some kids that would have been a rude shock," said Ireney. "But not for Monica." For many of the families burdened with grief, assaulted by guilt this won't be a season of good cheer. Merrifield, who grew up in Muncy, barely 10 miles from Montoursville, said she is too sick at heart to go home for the holidays, and will remain in Canada until after Christmas.

"I can't stand to be there with everyone else, but no Jacque," said npinfr Hoonpr intn fl chair at the cabin in rural Danford Lake, Ontario, she shares with her Canadian husband, Gilbert. "It's easy for me to hide out here and say, 'I'm not going to have Christmas this year. Or maybe ever For years, Merrifield, who is divorced from Jacque's father, Frank Watson, lived alone with her daughter in a Victorian-style home near the heart of Montoursville. Even after she married Gilbert, she remained in the town of fewer than 5,000 people so that popular, self-effacing Jacque could finish school at Montoursville High. Jacque's older brother, Kimber26, has lived on his own for years, and 890123 4567 f.

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