SEQUIM — One year. 365 days.
That was the last time Barb Holden spoke to her daughter, Heather.
“It’s a bad day; an empty day. But I’m trying to get through it,” Holden said Wednesday from the Dungeness home she shares with husband Pete and son Josh Holden — Heather’s father and brother.
Heather Holden, 19, was killed in a single-car crash on New Year’s Eve 2002 along with 19-year-old Aaron Gambell and 22-year-old Paul Boynton.
“We’ve gone through all the firsts: all the holidays, (Heather’s) birthday; and now the first anniversary of her death,” Barb Holden said. “Hopefully now we can start to move on.”
For Beth Olmstead, Aaron Gambell’s mother, Wednesday was also poignant and painful.
“Today is doable, thanks only to friends and loved ones who have surrounded us,” the Sequim woman said.
Beth Olmstead and Aaron’s father, Harold Gambell, divorced recently but still share the bond of parenting Aaron, his 18-year-old brother, James David — and the agony of loss.
“I knew this first year was going to be rough, and it was,” Olmstead said.
“I’m hoping the second year will be calmer.”
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The rest of the story appears in the Thursday Peninsula Daily News.
