Suicide and murders tested her faith

Antoinette Bosco can.

In 1991, her son Peter committed suicide. Two years later, her other son, John, and his wife Nancy were murdered in their Montana home.

Not a curse

"People have asked me, `What's wrong with your family?'" she explained. "I don't look to curses and fates at all. My son Peter had a breakdown when he was 17; and with my son John and Nancy, it was a gun in the hands of a teenager. It wasn't a curse or fate."

Ms. Bosco also dislikes the idea that the Kennedy clan has been singled out for more than its share of tragedy. A member of a large family and mother of seven herself, she said that "when you have a big family, the odds are increased" that some of its members meet with unfortunate circumstances.

"I spend half my day praying, `Please, Lord, keep them safe' -- and I may be talking about 60 people!" she said.

Living life

"Was it a mistake for my son to buy a house in Montana? I don't know. Was it a mistake for John Kennedy to fly? I don't know. That's life," she stated. "Sometimes, [actions] put you in a situation where there's a danger or threat -- and the ultimate threat is the loss of human life."

Such tragedies can only be handled, she said, with faith. "In life, you never know from one minute to the next what's going to happen, and that's where our faith comes in. Life is good; life has purpose. If we have our faith, we say, `This is okay, because this is not our permanent home.'"

No time barrier

Suddenly, she felt as if she had been struck, "and I clearly heard the words in my head: `THEY ARE A PERMANENT GIFT.'"

She believes that helped her break the "time barrier" -- to understand that life is valuable, no matter how brief.

"Something that consoled me after my boys died was an article I read as a teenager in Albany," she recalled. In it, "a father had lost his child at three months, and he said, `Why do we put so much focus on time, when we should focus on life? My child had a life.' When you lose someone you love from this earth, it helps you to break that time barrier."

Matter of faith

In explaining her beliefs, Ms. Bosco said she was not discounting the pain a family feels at losing one -- or more -- of its own.

"It's terrible. To lose two [sons] at the same time was horrendous," she said. "I have a very deep idea of what these families must be going through. I've often identified with Rose Kennedy as a mother who lost four children. My definition of a `small family' is any family that's missing one person."

Still, she remembered a magazine article in which someone had asked Rose Kennedy how she could even get up in the morning after facing so many losses: "She said, `Birds sing after a storm -- why shouldn't we take all that we can to enjoy in this life?'" even after a tragedy.

Grieving

"Growing up in Albany, going to the Cathedral and [the College of] Saint Rose, I had all the answers back then," she remembered wryly. "Now, I say my faith is a mystery."

But even through that, she said, "I don't need the answers, if I can break the time barrier. God wanted us to know that truly, He understands our pain, and new life does come."

The grieving process is different for everyone, and Ms. Bosco admitted she still cries often when she thinks about her sons. When she lectures about grief, she often meets other people "who stayed locked in anger and pain and wanting revenge."

Anniversaries of deaths can be the hardest times to face, she added. "The sixth anniversary [of John and Nancy's deaths] is coming up. I will not minimize the fact that you never get over the pain. What you learn is to take that pain and try to make something out of it."

Peace amid pain

"I was prodded to write that book by my son Peter," she said. "It was as if he was saying, `Go deeper, Mom.' [I could] take the sadness of my loss and do something with it to help others."

Recently, Ms. Bosco was cleaning her house and found a letter from Peter that she hadn't read in a while. In it, he wrote: "Most of all, I thank God...for my mother." When he began "to falter and doubt myself," he said, he looked at his mother and realized that his good qualities were her own.

After reading that, Ms. Bosco said, "I fell apart for an hour. It's a mystery, the whole thing. But you can make your life better. When you know you haven't become bitter and you can help people, you know healing has taken place."

("The Pummeled Heart: Finding Peace through Pain" is available through Twenty-Third Publications. Call 1-800-321-0411.)

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