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Among the memories, little things hurt the most

For Brooke Ashlee Ingoldsby's parents, the pain of her death is still fresh and deep.

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published February 25, 2005

[Times photo: Lara Cerri] "Brooke's diary, do not open" read the cover of the book where 8-year-old Brooke Ashlee Ingoldsby poured out her thoughts and hopes for the future. One entry, above, from the week before she died, wondered about a boy.

[Times photo: Lara Cerri] Though the pain remains, it's not all tears for Chris and Michelle Allen. They can laugh and smile as they recall happy memories of their daughter, Brooke Ingoldsby, who died after being struck by a vehicle after she got off her school bus.

[Special to the Times] Brooke Ingoldsby holds her half sister, Janessa, on July 16, 2004. Brooke's family remembers Brooke saying, "I will remember this day for the rest of my life."

ST. PETERSBURG - Mornings are the worst.

Michelle Allen wakes up thinking about making her daughter's breakfast and getting her ready for the school bus.

Then she remembers.

Her husband, Chris, struggles to adjust to the quiet.

Over and over, the parents of 8-year-old Brooke Ashlee Ingoldsby relive a parent's nightmare - the death of a child.

In the days after Brooke was killed in rush hour traffic after exiting her school bus, the Allens were consumed with the details of burying their daughter. Now, their days are haunted by memories of the girl who slept in a bunk bed surrounded by Lizzie McGuire posters.

It's the little things that hurt, Michelle says, like looking through her day planner and seeing the PTA meetings and family fun nights she won't attend.

"The pain comes and goes in roller coaster spurts," she said.

On their last morning together, mother and daughter talked in the car as they waited for the school bus.

They plotted a weekend of big fun - going out to dinner that night, shopping at the Red Barn Flea Market, driving to the beach to watch the sun go down.

"I love you, Mom," Brooke said as she flashed a grin and slammed the door shut. She sprinted across the parking lot, her book bag slung over her shoulder, and disappeared inside the yellow bus.

It was the last thing Michelle Allen heard her daughter say.

The next time she saw her, Brooke was dying at Bayfront Medical Center.

"I'll never get to listen in on her phone calls," Michelle said in an interview on Wednesday, a week after Brooke's funeral. "I'll never see her go to a prom. I won't be able to make sure she picks a good man."

Neither mother nor father has returned to work. Their employers, Bennigan's and the St. Petersburg Police Department, have told them to take whatever time they need. With relatives still in town, Michelle, 28, and Chris, 27, don't yet know what their lives will become.

Michelle had to bite her lip when she canceled Brooke's airline reservation for a spring break trip the family had planned to Edwards, N.Y., where the Allens lived before moving to St. Petersburg a year ago.

The ticket agent wanted to know why Michelle was canceling Brooke's ticket.

"The girl gasped," Michelle said. "I felt bad for having to tell her."

At the mall, Michelle had to turn away when she saw a mom and her little girl entering the Limited Too, one of Brooke's favorite shopping haunts.

Just before she died, Brooke made valentines for her friends in New York. Should they be mailed or not? The only thing Michelle knows for sure is that her 9-year-old son, Shawn, who lives in a home for autistic children in Massachusetts, will receive the valentine Brooke made for him.

The couple are bracing for more. Next week, they will present Brooke's death certificate to state officials and ask them to cancel her Social Security card. They will choose a headstone to mark her grave. They will continue to discuss a lawsuit they plan to bring against the Pinellas school district for Brooke's death.

And they find joy in their 7-month-old daughter, Janessa.

Since Brooke's death, the young mother said she finds herself avoiding places populated by children.

Although she has a close relationship with the principal of Brooke's school, James B. Sanderlin Elementary, she isn't sure when, if ever, she will be able to return as a parent volunteer.

The parents reminisce about Brooke's penchant for pretty clothes and her passion for anything connected to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. They laugh at Brooke's inability to tell a story without using big gestures, and how she loved animals but didn't care for bugs.

Michelle somberly recalls the "game plan" she outlined for Brooke, which the child repeated like a mantra: First you graduate from high school, then you to go college. You get a career, then you meet a nice man. You get married and you have children.

Her voice catches when she acknowledges none of those things will happen for Brooke.

"The only reason I get out of bed in the morning is because I know I'll see her again," Michelle said. "I know she's happier than she ever could have been here. I know she's not in pain. She's not suffering."

Michelle was at work two weeks ago today when Chris, Brooke's stepfather, called to tell her Brooke was more than an hour late getting home from school. Her first thought was that Brooke had been kidnapped. Her next was that Brooke had missed the bus.

Chris and his mother, Nancy Allen, who was visiting from New York, were headed to Bayfront Medical Center in a police car when Nancy called Michelle to tell her Brooke had been hit by a car.

At Bayfront, a hospital chaplain escorted them to a room reserved for loved ones of critically ill or injured patients.

"I kept saying I didn't want to go to that room," said Michelle. "It was the kind of room they took me in when Brooke's father died."

As the chaplain led them to Brooke, Michelle tried to prepare herself for what she was about to see. The scene took her breath away.

"I asked the doctor if she could hear us," Michelle said. "He said he wasn't sure."

In the end, which came around 8:15 p.m., Brooke's heart simply stopped beating.

"We left the room," Michelle said. "When we came back, they had put a little blue towel around her head. We gave her a kiss on the forehead. Then the police took us home."

Michelle spent much of Sunday, two days after the accident, sifting through family photos, trying to decide which to display at Brooke's visitation.

She tried to keep her thoughts from turning to previous sorrows: her grandmother, who died in December; her first husband, who committed suicide; and 9-year-old son, Shawn, who was diagnosed with autism when he was a baby.

That day, and in the days since Brooke's death, she has had moments when she can't help feeling she has been robbed twice.

"I had mourned and grieved for Shawn," she said. "I knew he would never be a normal little boy. He would never play T-ball, he would never get married and have children. I was always so thankful I had Brooke. She was like my little buddy, my little best friend."

Tuesday was especially hard for the Allens. The couple decided to go for a walk after dinner and found themselves at a roadside memorial someone created at the accident scene.

A purple-robed angel with white feathers for wings sits atop a rough-hewn cross. Brooke's name is printed on the cross bar. On the ground is a pot of marigolds, a wreath made of red silk roses, a framed photo of Brooke and a yellow candle.

"I know for a long, long time," the mother said, "that it's going to hurt."

[Last modified February 25, 2005, 00:51:16]