I'll See You Again
In this “wonderful and courageous” (Jeannette Walls) 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.
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.
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Community Reviews
cw: suicide, suicidal ideations, death, terminal illness (cancer), pregnancy scare, assault, abandonment, cheating
this book: why must a book be good? is it not enough to simply have a gay mc and a ton of tropes?
the gay mc in question is cyrus, a middle class 17 year old in desperate need of therapy (tbh all the characters do) who has an absent father and a mum with cancer. his love interest is nico, an upper class classmate who has been actively pursuing cyrus for years though cyrus seems to be in denial about this.
- the mcs have zero chemistry. i have no idea why they were even together when they would have definitely made better friends
- this book sets out as one-sided enemies to lovers for no real reason with the 'enemies' part being relatively short
- none of these characters have boundaries or respect for each other
- seriously, all of these characters are dicks (cyrus' dad comes back into his life and cyrus punches him twice! and then cyrus' dad commits suicide! and he doesn't care that much. seriously wtf)
- none of these characters recognise their privilege and it seriously irked me (after cyrus' mum dies, he finds out one of his mum's doctors is being accused of malpractice and he won't join the lawsuit again him because he has money from his dad)
- this book posits that suicide is 'selfish' multiple times
- everyone argues with everyone over trivial things and their moods flip in an instant
- i have never heard teenagers talk like this in my life and everyone seems to talk exactly the same
i just have no idea why this book is written in this way when it's abundantly clear that cyrus and nico should be in therapy and never should have even attempted to be together.
this book: why must a book be good? is it not enough to simply have a gay mc and a ton of tropes?
the gay mc in question is cyrus, a middle class 17 year old in desperate need of therapy (tbh all the characters do) who has an absent father and a mum with cancer. his love interest is nico, an upper class classmate who has been actively pursuing cyrus for years though cyrus seems to be in denial about this.
- the mcs have zero chemistry. i have no idea why they were even together when they would have definitely made better friends
- this book sets out as one-sided enemies to lovers for no real reason with the 'enemies' part being relatively short
- none of these characters have boundaries or respect for each other
- seriously, all of these characters are dicks (cyrus' dad comes back into his life and cyrus punches him twice! and then cyrus' dad commits suicide! and he doesn't care that much. seriously wtf)
- none of these characters recognise their privilege and it seriously irked me (after cyrus' mum dies, he finds out one of his mum's doctors is being accused of malpractice and he won't join the lawsuit again him because he has money from his dad)
- this book posits that suicide is 'selfish' multiple times
- everyone argues with everyone over trivial things and their moods flip in an instant
- i have never heard teenagers talk like this in my life and everyone seems to talk exactly the same
i just have no idea why this book is written in this way when it's abundantly clear that cyrus and nico should be in therapy and never should have even attempted to be together.
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