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A family's Mother's Day spent mourning

An afternoon stop by the carwash takes the life of a mom, and robs a family of its celebration.

TAMPA - Sunday was supposed to have been a celebration for Brenda Lee Brown.

It was Mother's Day, her second since she and husband Mac Brown adopted a smiling blond baby boy and named him Darnell.

It also was just five weeks until the fifth anniversary of her wedding to Mac, a tall, handsome Atlanta native with a warm smile.

But instead of spending Mother's Day at home with Mac and 18-month-old Darnell, Brown, 43, was at St. Joseph's Hospital, living out her final moments.

Relatives had hurried to the hospital after Brown was run over Friday afternoon in the parking lot of a Town 'N Country carwash, the victim of what appears to have been a freak accident.

Now, as the clock ticked toward 3 a.m., loved ones held Brown's hand and kissed her goodbye.

"They kept her on life support until we got there," said her mother, Karen Roth of North Carolina. "We just talked to her and tried everything we could to let her know we were there."

Then they watched as the life support machine was turned off.

Bruce Crawford, her brother, looked at the clock.

It was 2:58 a.m.

His little sister was gone.

* * *

Brown was about to buckle herself and Darnell into her Nissan Pathfinder Armada, which had just been washed and toweled off at Town 'N Country Car Wash, 8211 W Hillsborough Ave.

As she wheeled Darnell's stroller out to the Pathfinder, attendant Densil Blake was driving a 2003 Isuzu Rodeo off the carwash's conveyer belt.

The Isuzu surged forward, barreling into Brown with such force that she flew onto the Isuzu's hood, according to investigators.

Darnell's stroller was knocked over, but he wasn't hurt. Brown rolled off the hood onto the ground as the Isuzu continued across Hillsborough Avenue and finally stopped.

"It was a freak thing, and it's devastating because it involves a child that has lost his mother," said Hillsborough sheriff's Cpl. Donald Morris, who could recall no similar incident. "No one expects to go to a carwash and not survive."

Morris said it's too early in the investigation to determine what, if any, charges would be filed against Blake, the 50-year-old attendant.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the Isuzu to accelerate or how fast it was going when it hit Brown. But Morris said the Isuzu didn't have much time or distance in the carwash parking lot to have been going very fast.

"Keep in mind, though, it's a 4,000-pound SUV hitting a small person," he said.

* * *

Brown was born Brenda Lee Crawford, the youngest of three children and the only girl.

She and her brothers grew up in Dunedin, where brother Bruce Crawford recalls getting into a few scuffles to keep the boys awayfrom his pretty kid sister.

Brown had her first son, Travis, before she was 25.

Other things in life she did later than most people. But she did them right, her mother said.

She didn't get her college degree until she was in her late 30s, but when she graduated from Eckerd College, she did so with honors.

Brown waited until she was 39 to marry for the first time, but when she walked down the aisle to McNeil "Mac" Brown Jr. on June 16, 2001, she was sure he was the one.

The couple met over the telephone through a friend.

"I tell everybody we were love at first sound," he said Monday, a chuckle breaking through his grief. "We talked for hours."

But he was a busy guy, he told her during that first phone conversation. Why don't we just try to meet in a week or so? he suggested.

Then he hung up and kicked himself for almost blowing it. He called her back. Let's go out tomorrow, he said.

They went to dinner at Landry's Seafood House in Tampa.

"It was about 6 o'clock, and we just talked the whole time," Mac Brown said. "It was so comfortable."

They went out onto the balcony to talk some more.

"The next thing I remember isthat I looked up and the restaurant was closed, it was all locked up," he said. "It was 12 o'clock, and we were the only two people on the planet."

On Monday, Mac Brown made arrangements for his wife's cremation and a service that will celebrate her life rather than mourn its passing. He tried to imagine their 4,100-square-foot home near Westchase without her.

"This house is all her," said Brown, 47, vice president of a medical manufacturing company. "She did it, she decorated it."

She picked the warm beige walls in the family room, the leather couches, the contemporary black dining room set. She wanted the African art on the walls to reflect her husband's heritage.

Then they adopted Darnell and made room for his toys and bedroom furniture.

Mac Brown supported the family so that Brown could leave her job as a branch manager with Progressive Insurance to stay home with Darnell.

Brown had never seen his wife so happy.

"She has been an unbelievable mother," he said. "When she was with him, she just beamed from ear to ear."

Then, with a single trip to the carwash, she was gone.

--Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com