I'll See You Again

Written by Jackie Hance and Janice Kaplan

Narrated by Jackie Hance

In this “wonderful and courageous” (Jeannette Walls) memoir, Jackie Hance shares her story of unbearable loss, darkest despair, and—slowly, painfully, and miraculously—her cautious return to hope and love.

Until the horrific car accident on New York’s Taconic State Parkway that took the lives of her three beloved young daughters, Jackie Hance was an ordinary Long Island mom, fulfilled by the joyful chaos of a household bustling with life and chatter and love. After the tragedy, she was “The Taconic Mom,” whose unimaginable loss embodied every parent’s worst nightmare. Suddenly, her lifelong Catholic faith no longer explained the world. Her marriage to her husband, Warren, was ravaged by wrenching grief and recrimination. Unable to cope with the unfathomable, she reinvented reality each night so that she awoke each morning having forgotten the heartbreaking facts: that Emma, age 8; Alyson, age 7; and Katie, age 5, were gone forever. They were killed in a minivan driven by their aunt, Jackie’s sister-in-law, Diane Schuler, while returning from a camping weekend on a sunny July morning. I’ll See You Again chronicles the day Jackie received the traumatizing phone call that defied all understanding, and the numbed and torturous events that followed—including the devastating medical findings that shattered Jackie to the core and shocked America. But this profoundly honest account is also the story of how a tight-knit community rallied around the Hances, providing the courage and strength for them to move forward. It’s a story of forgiveness, hope, and rebirth, as Jackie and Warren struggle to rediscover the possibility of joy by welcoming their fourth daughter, Kasey Rose Hance. The story that Jackie Hance shares for the first time will touch your heart and warm you to the power of love and hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Apr 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781442364752

Jackie Hance

Jackie Hance lives with her family in New York. For more information about The Hance Family Foundation, visit Blog.HanceFamilyFoundation.com.

Reviews for I'll See You Again

[Kim Roqe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

WHAT AN AMAZING HEARTFELT MEMOIR. GOD BLESS YOU JACKIE <3

[Lisa Branstner Caduff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oh my heart. Thank you for sharing your story with us. I will never forget your girls.

[Saana Kemppainen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've listened to almost 20 minutes now and I can't seem to get over the monotone of the narrator's reading. I think it would be more respecting to the story to live through it with some feeling, positive and negative, and not tell the sad, funny and snarky parts all in complete flat tone.

[Annie Crauwcamp · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a heartbreaking book but also gives hope. I appreciate the honesty with which it was written.
I know the book was narrated by the author and I can understand why she felt she needed to read it herself, but I honestly feel it could have been done better by someone else. I actually checked - after a few chapters - if I didn't by accident put it on a fast reading speed. I didn't.
Still, it is a good book and worth the listen.

[dennisonjill-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is the book that should never have been published. It needed to be written, as I’m sure the writing was a catharsis of sorts to Ms. Hance, but it should never have been published and sold to the general public. Barbara Walters told Ms. Hance she found the book “uplifting”. Ms. Walters is kinder than I am; I found it almost anything but uplifting. Ms. Hance has faced the greatest nightmare that any parent can ever face and my heart goes out to her. I cannot imagine the pain, the devastation she feels every day as she struggles to get through the days of her life without her children. I am sympathetic to her, however this is a book review and as such must honestly appraise the value of the book in question and I find very little to love in this book.I bought the book after seeing Ms. Hance as a guest on The View a few weeks prior and remembering the Tragedy on the Taconic, as it came to be called almost four years ago, I recalled that when the media circus finally died down, there were a number of unanswered questions left on the table. I was anticipating that Ms. Hance’s book would seek to provide answers to some of those questions. A third of the way into the book, I realized that the only question that was being addressed was “Why me, God?” and, finding little or no value in my reading I set the book aside with no intention of going back to it. However, two weeks later I decided that this was a review I wanted to write and my conscience would not let me write the review without finishing the book, so I did pick it back up.The root of the story, for those who do not know or do not remember, is that on Sunday, July 26, 2009, Ms. Hance’s sister-in-law, Diane Schuler, was driving with the three Hance daughters and her own two children back to New York from a weekend camping trip when she entered the Taconic freeway going the wrong way. She drove nearly two miles at a speed of 85 miles per hour, despite numerous other drivers swerving, flashing their lights, and motioning out car windows to get her attention, until crashing head on with another vehicle, killing eight of the nine people in both vehicles. It was soon determined that Ms. Schuler was extremely intoxicated, with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, undigested vodka still in her system, and evidence that she had also been under the influence of illegal drugs (marijuana). Those are the undisputable facts. The investigation into how and why this could have happened has turned up more half-truths, finger-pointing, and blatant lies than it has additional facts. There are numerous lawsuits in the courts today as a result of this accident, a few perhaps legitimate, a few based on more lies and attempts to shift blame and responsibility. It is not my intent to re-hash this pathetic investigation, and I’ll See You Again will not address the real issues at all. If you are interested in the most detailed account, a better choice to read is The Taconic Tragedy: A Son’s Search for the Truth, by Jeanne Bastardi, the wife of a man whose father and brother died in the vehicle Ms. Schuler crashed into. It is difficult to fairly and honestly review this book. My criteria for judging non-fiction is twofold: is the story worth the telling, and is it written in such a way as to reflect the value of the story. In the case of I’ll See You Again, there is definitely a story worth telling, however Ms. Hance told only a small part of the story and not one that can hold the reader’s interest for an entire 288 pages. It is difficult to review the story without coming across as unsympathetic, however a little self-pity goes a long way and Ms. Hance indulges in nearly 288 pages of it. She feels her own grief deeply and understandably, however throughout she is blind to the grief of anybody else, including her husband and the girls’ grandparents, neighbors, friends and their children. She is constantly angry at her husband, denying him the right to grieve. That they are still together may well qualify Warren Hance for sainthood! To her credit, she did try psychiatric help, but as is typical was treated with drugs instead of genuine grief counseling. And she did try talking to clergy, but was given the same platitudes we all hear rather than any real comfort. In situations like this, truly there are no words that can give actual comfort. The one thing that nobody suggested and it seems to me would have been the first line of attack against the depression that quickly took over her life was to get a job. Hard work and physical activity are really the only cures for depression, whether real or imagined, but rather than consider this, she chose to either spend her days in bed crying (which we are told over and over, ad nauseum) or go shopping and spend money. Her friends, who also qualify for sainthood, dedicated large portions of their lives to being there for Ms. Hance, including changing their lives drastically. One friend cancelled her annual Halloween party in 2009, as she felt it would be too hard for Jackie, but then in 2010 she resumed the party for the sake of her own children, and Jackie was furious, saying “How could Jeannine do this to me?” Really? This is a fully mature adult, nearly a year and a half after the accident, expecting her friends to put their own lives on hold indefinitely. When the story isn’t about how miserable she is and how unfair life has been to her, it is about what a great mother she was. Understandably, I began to not like Jackie Hance very much. The last quarter of the book sees some improvement in her attitude, presumably due to the arrival of a new baby, and she began to be able to see the grief that Warren and others in the family had suffered. We can only hope that the new baby is given the opportunity to grow and thrive in her own patch of light rather than in the shadows of her dead sisters. By the end of the book I was beginning to like Ms. Hance marginally better, but I still believe 288 pages of self-pity does not make for a good read.In addition to the issue of excessive self-pity, I am disappointed in this book because the whole issue of the crash and its’ causes has been ignored except for a few brief mentions where Ms. Hance declares nobody had any indication that the sister-in-law, Diane, was an alcoholic and toward the end she graciously tells Diane at the gravesite that she forgives her. There are several lawsuits still pending, so I imagine it was not possible to delve too deeply into facts surrounding Diane’s drug and alcohol addiction, but I cannot accept the denial of the entire family that nobody knew she even drank. Perhaps one day when the lawsuits are settled, somebody will be able to write an honest book about the facts and details surrounding the accident. I can only justify a one-star rating, as I still believe it should have been written as a journal for Ms. Hance’s personal benefit, and not a published book at nearly $30. Again, my heart goes out to Ms. Hance, but I am writing a book review, not holding a grief counseling session. I cannot in good conscience recommend this book.

[arielfl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was expecting a book that provided answers to the accident that took Jackie Hance's three young daughters. So many questions. How could a seemingly wonderful person (Diane) guzzle vodka and smoke pot and then get behind the wheel of a van full of kids and kill them by driving the wrong way on the Taconic Pky? Not only that but she took ended the lives of three men in another car as well. How could Diane's husband not notice anything was amiss when she got behind the wheel? How could no one who encountered her at a gas station or a McDonald's stop noticed odd behavior either? How can you handle living in a family where the murderer of your children is your husband's sister? Diane was a woman who in the past had only shown loving, concerned behavior towards her nieces. She had a high power, corporate job. She was not a person known to drink or do drugs. So what wrong on an idyllic summer day? Jackie Hance has gone through unimaginable hell so of course she is entitled to write whatever book she wants. What she puts forth that does not hold back on any of her unbearable pain. At times her pain is so excruciating that it is very uncomfortable to read. What is missing is the answers because she apparently doesn't have any. Also missing is any mention of the other people whose lives were taken in the accident. I wonder if this was possibly due to the round robin of lawsuits being played out in court. In fact hardly any mention of Diane herself is made although there is a powerful testament to the power of forgiveness by Jackie at Diane's grave at the end of the book . For the most part Jackie waxes on nostalgically about the wonderful parties she used to throw, the money she spent, and how much her life has lost meaning without her girls. One of Jackie's way to memorialize her girls and her love of God is to wear diamonds. I like her husbands tattoo way better. At times it is hard to identify with Jackie even though a mother's love for her children is a universal experience. It was especially harsh when she snapped at her husband to stop his nap and go back to work to make money for her. In the end the book is so watered down that the tragedy that happened that took the lives of her girls could have been really anything. Anyone looking for real insight into the accident should probably watch the HBO special or get another book. This book shared Jackie Hance's personal grieving process and it does end on a positive note. After going through hell, Jackie, her husband and their new baby Kacey see a real hope for the future. I don't know if the same can be said for Diane's husband or the lone survivor from the accident, her son. A truly painful story for all involved, I wish everyone peace.