Tragedy and Opportunity

Do you think of what you’re doing as a means of exacting revenge?

We have to defeat the hatred that took Danny’s life. So in that sense, it’s revenge. That hatred caused our pain, therefore we have to reduce it, eliminate it, lessen it.

Does coping with the loss of Danny ever get any easier?

Ruth Pearl: Truly not.

Are there moments when you walk around the house and something triggers a memory of him?

There’s no moment there isn’t such a trigger. I used to have a hard time walking into the backyard because he was there, as a child and an adult. The backyard is where we would have our quality time, where we would have breakfast together and just sit and have fun. His last visit here in June 2001, we had a brunch out on the patio for him and Mariane [Daniel's widow]. That was the last time he was here.