Several years ago there was a book called “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” This is the inevitable thought that comes to mind when meeting Carmen and Bob Pack.
The injustice of bad things happening, not just to good people, but also to people who are doing all the right things, rocks our tenuous belief in the fairness of the world.
When such a thing happens in our own community, and it involves the senseless death of two young children of loving, devoted parents, it horrifies and haunts us. How? and Why? are tormenting questions because they mean that none of us is safe from the vagaries of life that can turn unforgivably cruel in one unfortunate instant.
Two years ago, the Packs were a typical suburban family, living a dreamy life of Little League games and swim meets and neighborhood block parties. Their story began in a fairytale fashion when Carmen, a model and beauty queen in her native Peru, met Bob Pack by chance on a trip to the United States in 1986. They quickly fell in love and married in 1988. Carmen gave birth to their first child, Troy, in 1993, and their daughter, Alana, three years later.
Carmen stayed home caring for the kids while Bob worked at a rising Internet company. Their lives revolved around their children so much that people would tease them about it. “We did everything with them,” says Bob. “My family would joke because when we would go out for our anniversary, we would take them with us. We just had so much fun with them.”
Then on Oct. 26, 2003, in an instant of inconceivably bad timing and luck, the Pack’s dream life turned into the worst kind of nightmare. On an early evening outing to get slushies, with Alana on her bike, Troy on his scooter, and Carmen walking behind them on the sidewalk, a gold Mercedes driven by a woman under the influence of drugs and alcohol, jumped the curb and hit the children. Alana died at the scene of the crash and Troy died later that evening.
Bob and Carmen returned home the next morning to a house full of memories, struggling to cope with the tragedy. Their grief was all-encompassing. Only Carmen’s faith kept her going.
“After the crash, I lay here on the couch for several days and I did nothing but pray,” says Carmen. “I was praying and praying and praying and all of a sudden, I just felt this peace in me. And I had the conviction that my children were OK and that I had nothing to worry about. Nothing. That peace has been with me since then, carrying me, giving me the strength that I needed.”
Carmen’s faith has been crucial to Bob’s healing, too. He was so devastated by the children’s deaths that he was once convinced that he and Carmen should kill themselves. Carmen discouraged him by telling him that if they did, they would not go to heaven and see Alana and Troy again.
“I’ve struggled quite a bit,” says Bob. “But Carmen helped by pushing me along to go to church. When I would get down, she would help me to get back up.”
“When you grieve, you can grieve with hope or you can grieve without hope,” says Carmen. “I’m grieving with hope so it makes the process a little bit easier. Because I have the conviction that I will be reunited with my children someday and that they will be in a better place. If I didn’t have that hope, I would have nothing. Hope is what is keeping me alive, and of course my faith in God, which is very strong.”
The overwhelming support of the community has also been important in the Packs’ healing. “The community responded in a very nice, positive way since the tragedy,” says Carmen. “I’ve made a lot of friends.”
“We really like the town of Danville,” says Bob. “We’ve really seen the good side here and it really shows what a great community it is.”
Even as they mourned the loss of Troy and Alana, the Packs stayed involved in the community. Carmen volunteered with Books for the Barrios, a local charity that collects books for schools in the Philippines. Bob continued to coach Little League baseball with Troy’s friends.
“I think it was good for the children to see Bob out there coaching, especially Troy’s friends,” says Carmen. “Troy played baseball with the same group since he was 6 years old, so to see Bob out there coaching and smiling, it was good for the children, the parents told me. When I would go to the games, the kids would come and hug me all the time. I don’t know if the parents told them to do that.”
Two years after the crash, the Packs are working hard to contribute to the community that has supported them and to keep the memories of their children alive through the Troy and Alana Pack Foundation, which they created in December 2003.
“We didn’t intend to start a foundation,” says Bob. “We kind of tripped across it for two reasons. First, donations came in and we set up a memorial fund, and it started to accumulate a fair amount of money, and we decided we needed to do something productive with that money.
“Second, we wanted to give something back to the community. That spearheaded the beginnings of the foundation. Carmen and I put some money in and we held some charity events. We’ve raised about $250,000. There’s $200,000 in the fund now and we’ve given away about $50,000.”
One of the programs the foundation has helped fund is “Street Smarts,” a traffic safety program implemented through the Danville and San Ramon schools. The program helps educate kindergarteners through high schoolers about traffic safety issues, such as wearing bike helmets, staying on the sidewalks, and obeying traffic rules.
The foundation also funds scholarships for local students. Last year it gave away two $1,500 scholarships, one to a San Ramon Valley High School student and one to a Monte Vista student. The scholarships will continue in perpetuity.
“We’re always thinking of a creative way that we can do something good,” says Bob. “Over time we tried some good things to help us, and it feels good to know we’re doing something to help others. It’s kind of a healing thing.”
The spring 2005 trial of Jimena Barreto, the driver who killed the children, was a difficult time for the Packs, who were forced to relive their ordeal. They also heard overwhelming evidence that should have kept Barreto off the road years before the accident.
The trial revealed that Barreto, who was working as a nanny in Danville, was an alcoholic and drug addict with four prior DUI’s. At the time of the accident she had a suspended license. Barreto admitted to taking eight to 10 tablets of Vicodin, a prescription pain reliever, on the day of the crash, and cocaine was found in her apartment.
“She did all the wrong things and never tried to correct herself,” says Carmen.
“That is what pushed us forward (to pass more stringent DUI laws),” says Bob. “When we read the police reports and this started coming together we became very angry and frustrated that she was slipping through the cracks of the judicial system. It was like, how is this happening?
“Barreto was getting hundreds and hundreds of Vicodins from various doctors, none of which knew about the prescriptions. In the two weeks prior to the crash, she had taken 200 Vicodins in addition to drugs and alcohol all the time.”
The Packs worked with state senators Tom Torlakson (D., Antioch) and Jackie Speier (D., San Francisco/San Mateo) to pass four bills to strengthen Driving Under the Influence and prescription drug laws in an effort to help prevent another incident like the one that devastated their family.
With the trial over, Barreto sentenced to 30 years to life, and the bills signed into laws, the Packs are hopeful about the future. Carmen, 45, is pregnant with a baby that was conceived through in-vitro fertilization using an egg from her Peruvian niece. She had previously been pregnant with twins, but lost them at 20 weeks, soon after Barreto’s trial. Carmen and Bob are looking forward to the joy that the new baby will bring into their lives.
“When we have the new baby, it will create such a busy atmosphere,” says Carmen. “We’ll get absorbed. And we’ll get our holidays back. We’ll get our Christmases and our Halloweens because it was all about the kids – carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating.”
This kind of tragedy often breaks apart marriages, but the Packs, who have been married for 17 years, have a strong, affectionate bond.
“I see my children in Bob,” says Carmen. “I see Troy’s eyes when I look in Bob’s eyes. I see Alana in his smile. It’s almost like I’m clinging to the little bit left that I have of them. I think we are clinging to each other. I think he sees his children in me, too.”
Even for Carmen, with her strong faith, the question of “why” remains.
“I do believe there is a purpose, a reason for everything,” she says. “Unfortunately not always you can know what that reason is.”
Nobody knows why bad things happen to good people. Yet, one thing that we can all be sure of is that some very good things are happening because of these very good people. And besides the new laws, traffic safety education and scholarships, we are reminded to hug our loved ones a little tighter and to treasure the good in our own lives.
New laws
The Packs have worked with the California Senate to pass the following laws:
* SB 1694 will increase the state’s statute of limitations on previous DUI offenses from seven years to 10 years. This law will help prevent repeat DUI offenders from slipping through the cracks of the criminal justice system.
* SB 1696 requires DUI-treatment providers to send a certificate of completion directly to the Department of Motor Vehicles. This certificate will be required before offenders can get their driver’s licenses back, which will help eliminate fraud.
* SB 1697 will consolidate driver’s license restrictions and revocations for DUI violators at the DMV, thus streamlining sanctions.
* SB 734 mandates that doctors are to report all prescribed narcotic drugs to the Department of Justice. This law will help eliminate the problem of patients receiving multiple narcotic prescriptions from different doctors.
Traffic safety
The Troy and Alana Pack Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Its goal is to help educate the public about traffic safety and responsibility, to promulgate legislation for traffic safety, and to help implement enforcement of those laws. For more information, visit www.troyandalana.org.
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