By Brian McLaughlin
"I'm surviving, but most of the time it feels like I'm just going through the motions," said Nancy. "Sometimes I feel like I'm the one who died."
Nancy accredits her survival through this emotionally trying time to her supportive neighbors and friends.
"I never realized how good all of these people were until I really needed them, and they were all there for me," she said. "I couldn't ask for better people in my life."
Nancy is also accompanied in her grief by her two other children, Michelle, 12, and Steven, 19. She says they have given her much to take comfort in.
"Steven told me that Kevin is still watching us and that we're all going to see him again someday," said Nancy.
But even though her remaining children have given her a lot of love in the past few weeks, Nancy says she can still feel the gap left by Kevin's absence.
"In every family, there's one kid that just brightens up everything else in your life," she said. "Kevin was that kid."
Nancy lives in a Valley Stream neighborhood just west of the Lynbrook border. In fact, her house is just down the street from Lynbrook's Greis Park, which is adjacent to the controversial wooded area of Wilcox Alley, where Kevin died.
Despite living so close to Wilcox Alley, Nancy said she had no idea the wooded area was such a popular hangout spot for children like her son Kevin.
"I can't believe that people knew about a trail of bicycle jumps that children used in such a dangerous area," she said. The bicycle jumps, Kevin's destination on the day he died, were torn down by the Lynbrook Department of Public Works following Kevin's death.
To make Nancy's loss even more devastating, the bicycle Kevin rode to the train tracks the day he died was stolen from her backyard last week. Nancy hopes the bike was stolen by one of Kevin's friends who wanted a memoir of their friend and that it was not a malicious act.
"I feel like someone took it so they could have a piece of Kevin," said Nancy.
Still, the bicycle was an important piece of Kevin for Nancy too. "He loved that bike," she said. "I remember I took him to buy some stickers for it earlier that day [July 14]."
Aside from his love for his bicycle, Nancy said Kevin did not care very much about material possessions.
"The most important thing in his life was his friends and he would sometimes give his own toys away to them to make them happy," said Nancy.
Kevin's generosity even extended to people he hardly knew. Nancy remembered a story about her son buying a cake for a mentally challenged Valley Streamer who often walked along Rockaway Avenue. Nancy said one day Kevin sat out there on a bench with the man and shared a birthday cake with him.
Kevin was especially devoted to his best friend Timothy Hoffman, who was with him on the fateful July day. Timmy was the first one to tell Nancy about the accident. He came racing down the block on a bicycle screaming that Kevin had been electrocuted, Nancy recalled.
Today, Timothy, who Nancy said "fit together with Kevin like two pieces of a puzzle," is experiencing heavy emotional trauma in the aftermath of his friend's death, and is receiving intensive counseling, according to Nancy. Timothy was unable to be reached for comment as of press time.
Nancy said Kevin was also very devoted to making her happy. Being a single mother with three children, Nancy often had to leave the house to work to support the family.
"But somehow Kevin always knew when I was coming home and he'd be there to greet me with a big smile," said Nancy, who often would snuggle up with Kevin and watch a movie after returning home from work.
In her struggle to make some sense of her son's death, Nancy has questioned why the dangerous section of train tracks was not better protected. Although railroad law states that protective barriers or warning signs are only required in areas where a path actually crosses the tracks, Nancy said "no matter what the law says, it's common sense that any exposed tracks should be protected."
Although the railroad has recently agreed to erect a barrier in Wilcox Alley, Nancy said the agreement only came after too many years of bureaucratic arguments and too many deaths.
"[The LIRR] was afraid of losing money, but I've lost my son," she said, although she does not think of Kevin as quite gone yet.
At Kevin's memorial service, Nancy said one woman's candle caught fire, and when the flame died down, a perfectly shaped heart had formed in the candle.
"A few strange things like that have happened since Kevin died," said Nancy. "It has helped me to believe that there is some higher power that is taking care of him...I just wish I got to say goodbye."
