Kathleen Hanley sits on a red folding chair among the rows of headstones that stand in perfectly aligned rows at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Cecil.
She doesn’t notice the sounds of cars rushing by on the highway or the funeral processions driving through. She is focused on the name engraved in the white marble in front of her: Sgt. Ryan H. Lane of the U.S. Marine Corps, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009 when he was 25 years old.
“I’ve read that headstone a million times,” Hanley, 66, of Baldwin said on a recent Friday as she sat in her chair at the crest of a hill, wiping away tears. “I still can’t believe what I am seeing.”
The name etched on the headstone belongs to her only biological son, the child who always told her before he was to be deployed, “Mom, don’t worry” and “If not me, Mom, then who?” — the latter words echoing those from the late Marine Travis Manion.
Those words reverberate in Hanley’s mind from her son, who was willing to give up his life for his country, who won’t be here to hug his mother today on Mother’s Day.
Hanley belongs to American Gold Star Mothers Inc., a group whose mission is to keep alive the memory of their children by working to help veterans, those currently serving in the military and their families.
“I often look for gold stars,” said Hanley, who has one on the top of her son’s headstone. “A member of the Gold Star Mothers came to the funeral home to pay her respects. Gold Star Mothers look out for each other and for our children.”
There are 1,000 members of Gold Star Mothers, a dwindling number from decades past, said Patti Elliott of North Carolina, national president of American Gold Star Mothers. Between the mid-1940s and early ’70s, there were 20,000 members.
“When I walk into a room full of Gold Star Mothers, I don’t have to explain myself or explain who I am because they know,” Elliott said. “We are sisters by chance.”
She said being a Gold Star Mother is a title she never wanted, but “I am incredibly proud of it because it is an acknowledgment of my son’s sacrifice for his country.”
Elliott remembers the day she was told her son had died.
She was in Dallas attending a conference with the Family Readiness Group that supports families during deployment. There was a knock on her hotel room door.
Elliott’s son, Army Spc. Daniel Lucas Elliott, was killed in action July 15, 2011, in Basra, Iraq.
Lucas — who Elliott called by his middle name since he was born — died three days before his 22nd birthday. His funeral was at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Elliott said she visits Arlington regularly every four to six weeks. She will also visit the graves of loved ones from other families she’s met while she’s there.
“If I am having a rough week, I will get in my car and drive there. It gives me comfort when I touch that headstone with his name on it because I can’t touch him,” Elliott said. “It is there that I feel close to him.”
The need to feel close to her son is one reason Hanley will make the drive Sunday to the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies.
“On Mother’s Day, everyone knows to leave me alone because that is a day for me and Ryan,” she said. “I would not wish this on anybody. Yes, Mother’s Day is … so, so, hard. But to us, every day is hard.”
Gold Star Mother’s Day
Grace Darling Seibold created American Gold Star Mothers. According to the Arlington National Cemetery website, Seibold’s 23-year-old son, George Vaughn Seibold, volunteered to be an aviator and was sent to England in 1917 as part of the British Royal Flying Corps. Mother and son regularly exchanged letters until she suddenly stopped hearing from him.
In 1918, she received his personal belongings and confirmation of his death.
Grace Darling Seibold reached out to other mothers trying to cope with similar losses, and 25 women banded together in 1928 to create American Gold Star Mothers Inc. In 1936, Congress designated the last Sunday in September as Gold Star Mother’s Day. Since 2011, it’s been known as Gold Star Mother’s and Family’s Day — when then-President Barack Obama amended it to include Gold Star Family’s Day.
Gold Star Mother’s Day this year is Sept. 28.
“Gold Star Mother’s Day and Mother’s Day are two especially tough days for these moms,” said John Dudo, of Beaver Falls, executive director of Legacies Alive, an organization that supports families whose loved ones have paid the ultimate sacrifice.
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“They have heavy hearts, and our team of volunteers reaches out to them with a phone call or text. They often thank us for not only thinking of their child, but also for thinking of them and remembering them.”
Connected by a date
Hanley met Chris and Jim Fike of Trafford at the National Cemeteries of the Alleghenies. The Fikes’ son, Pa. Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Robert “Bob” James Fike, 38, was killed in action in 2010 in Afghanistan. His birthday — July 23 — is the same date that Hanley’s son, Ryan Lane, died.
“Mother’s Day takes on a new meaning when you’ve lost a child,” said Chris Fike, 73, who wears a necklace with a gold star and carries a bear made from her son’s uniforms. “I want people to remember my son.”
The mothers recalled having a feeling their sons might not return home the last time they saw them. They remember the long line of cars in the funeral procession, people on the sidewalks waving American flags, their sons receiving full military honors during the funeral.
“There is a bond between a mother and a child that is like no other,” said Edward A. Hajduk, director of the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies. “As a father, I cannot understand it. Mothers can remember the little things. Their first steps, first time they rode a bike, their first boyfriend or girlfriend, their first heartbreak.
“Then there are the birthdays, the holidays, the graduations. Then your child decides to join the military, and you are proud of them. They are joining a service that is bigger than themselves, to put others first. Every mother wants the child to grow up and live a long happy life.”
Hanley finds strength from her husband Jim and daughter-in-law Valerie Lane.
“Valerie is my rock,” Hanley said.
Ryan’s father, Harold Lane, has been supportive, as have Ryan’s three half brothers. They’ve all felt the tremendous loss of Ryan Lane as well, Hanley said.
“This experience would crumble anybody,” she said. “It is one of the hardest things to live with. I carry this pain with me every day. I don’t want our heroes to be alone.”
She often visits Fike’s grave, and the Fikes will visit Lane’s grave.
Erin Sellner of Highland Park knows that parental pain as well. Her son, Army Pvt. Karl Jacob Sellner, who was born in South Buffalo Township and was stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas, died by suicide on Sept. 11, 2016. He was 23.
“We say that is our second 9/11,” said Sellner, 54, a mother of seven children and two grandchildren.
She reaches out to families through the non-profit The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, which supports military families.
“Nothing will bring him back, but this helps me honor his life,” Sellner said. “The loss of a child is a really hard time for mothers — who also lose some people in their address book because people stop coming around.
“There are so many unanswered questions. It changes the family dynamics. As a mom, you spend so much energy to protect them, and when something happens, you think, ‘What did I miss?’
“Mother’s Day and Gold Star Mother’s Day will always be hard.”
An emotional view
Hanley has a tattoo of a red heart with a hole in the middle on her left arm and a gold star with Lane’s name on her chest, close to her heart.
“Over time, it may scar over a little bit, but it doesn’t take much to reopen it,” Hanley said.
Hanley will be in her red chair among the white headstones on Mother’s Day, writing a note to her son.
“I will never stop being his mother,” she said. “Take a seat in my chair … this is my view.”
Jim and Chris Fike, who also have a son, Christopher, and five grandchildren, often sit on their son’s bench in the Trafford Veterans Memorial Park. An Army Vietnam veteran, Jim Fike said people often don’t know what to say to him and his wife.
They placed the bench so that, when a person sits on it, they can see across the Trafford Bridge. That bridge was packed with people waving American flags when Bob came home, said his father, who has the dirt-covered, blood-stained flag that was placed over his son’s body on the battlefield.
“These mothers embrace each other because only they understand how they feel losing a child,” Jim Fike said. “There are tears because there is nothing that compares to the relationship between a child and their mother.”