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A TV reporter suddenly thrust a microphone in her face.
"Mrs. Pierce, after going through such a horrible tragedy, how does it feel to see your husband's dream become a reality?"
A horrible tragedy. The phrase hung for a second in her mind, the memories still so fresh. "Two years ago we were a family of five," she heard herself saying. "A year ago we were a family of four, then a family of three. How blessed we are today to number in the hundreds."
No, this is not a tragedy, she thought to herself. This is a love story.
The oldest of Anna and John Pierce's three children, Alison was a strikingly attractive girl with long jet-black hair and a contagious smile. A fiercely competitive hockey player, she loved nothing more than to skate with her younger brothers on Snow Pond at their home in Princeton, Mass. Twelve-year-old Ali pursued life with unbridled energy and an irreverent sense of humor she shared with her father.
The shock was therefore numbing when she was diagnosed with liver cancer on December 23, 1994. Even more so when doctors revealed that the cancer was life-threatening.
But Ali's fighting spirit helped her beat the grim prognosis, just as it helped her endure the treatment that soon began. "There is one good thing about chemotherapy," she would joke. "You can never have a bad hair day."
The chemo wound up shrinking Ali's tumors. By the time she finished the regimen in May 1995, the result was nearly miraculous. There was almost no sign of cancer, making it possible to remove the affected areas surgically. Ali returned to her eighth-grade class the following fall.
The turnabout left Anna and John feeling inexpressible relief. Yet as time went on, they could see that Ali's illness had changed her. One day Anna noticed her looking sad and asked what was wrong.
"My friends don't understand what life is about," Ali said quietly. "They're upset because some boy won't talk to them or they feel fat. They just don't get it, Mom."
Sometimes her new perspective led to remarks that startled her parents. On one occasion Ali said, "Cancer is the best thing I've ever gone through." How can she say that? Anna thought, flabbergasted.
Unfortunately, the young girl's reprieve was short-lived. In December 1995 came the devastating news that Ali's cancer had returned. Realizing how precious every day now was, Anna suggested the family go on a Hawaiian vacation provided by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. But Ali said no.
"I've traveled," she told her mother. "Let someone else have the chance to go."
John and Anna took Ali to various specialists, seeking any avenues to keep her alive. The young girl, meanwhile, seemed remarkably at peace with her fate. Never did she say "Why me?"
Instead, it was Anna who would break down. To comfort her mother, Ali would say, "It's okay. What is, is."
Ali took her last breath on November 3, 1996. Only after her girl was gone did Anna learn that she had asked her friends to wear red, her favorite color, to her funeral. Numb with grief, Anna went out and bought a red dress.
At the funeral, she was astonished. Everywhere she looked there was a sea of red.
Each morning after Ali's death the words reverberated in Anna's head without mercy. Ali is gone.
She would get the boys ready for school, drive them to their hockey games, do the shopping -- all in a fog.
I'll cry every day for the rest of my life, Anna found herself thinking.
Though he continued to manage a Worcester brokerage firm, John was equally shattered by the loss of his daughter. Three weeks after the funeral, on Thanksgiving Day, he excused himself during their holiday dinner. Anna found him in Ali's room, weeping. She held him close and heard him say, "The best day of my life will be when I leave this world and join Ali."
"Soon enough one of us will be saying good-bye," she replied softly. "Let's not have any regrets. Don't let the boys see you like this." They talked a while longer and agreed that they should strive to live life to its fullest in Ali's memory.
John kept his word. Cancer had taken his daughter, but he would not let it destroy his family. Instead, he set out to create a legacy to Ali that would help other children battling cancer. Through the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center he established the Ali Pierce Endowment Fund, which would support pediatric cancer care and research. An ex-marathoner, John recruited friends and colleagues to run with him in future Boston Marathons, each person securing money pledges from sponsors. They called themselves Ali's Army, and John vowed they would raise $500,000 over five years.
Anna wanted no part of it. She had always been self-conscious in public -- even as a leader of her high school's pompom squad, she would beg another girl to give speeches for her in front of the student body. And she couldn't bear to revisit the cancer center where Ali had spent too much of her young life.
"Don't ask me to do anything," she told John."This is your baby."
She did agree to attend a memorial for Ali at Notre Dame Academy in Worcester. On March 31, 1997 -- the day before Ali's 15th birthday -- Anna brought red carnations to give to the girls in Ali's class, but she found she just couldn't do it. It was too hard to see the girls, so vibrant and full of life. She asked one of the teachers to hand them out for her and went home.
In October 1997, just 11 months after Ali's death, John and the rest of Ali's Army headed to Hollis, N.H., to train for Boston by running a half-marathon. Anna, who had stayed home with the boys on the crisp Saturday afternoon, was impatient.
Where was John? He said he'd be back for Mike's hockey game, which was to start shortly. When the phone rang, she thought it was John calling to say he would meet them at the game.
"Mrs. Pierce," said a nurse on the other end. "I'm sorry, but your husband has collapsed. You need to come right away."
Anna gripped the phone tightly. "What happened?"
"They're giving him CPR," the nurse replied.
Anna could feel the blood pounding in her ears as she hung up the phone and called the boys into the kitchen.
"Listen to me," she told them. "Daddy's collapsed. He's at the hospital. But Daddy's so strong, and he loves you guys so much. He'll be all right."
The frightened boys didn't say anything at first. Then 12-year-old J. T. spoke up. "He'll be okay. God would never do two terrible things to us in a year."
Her anxiety mounting, Anna called the hospital back and was transferred to an emergency-room nurse.
"Look," Anna said. "We just lost our daughter. I need to know my husband is still alive."
"Just a minute," the nurse said and gave the phone to a doctor.
"Mrs. Pierce," he said, "there's no other way to tell you this. We tried everything, but we were not able to revive your husband."
Anna felt paralyzed. She had suffered the worst loss that she could possibly bear. And now this? How could she tell the boys? Still, she couldn't have them go to the hospital with false hope.
She bent down and took a hand from each son. "Daddy's gone," she said quietly. "He's with Ali."
J.T. broke free of her grip and ran out of the house, shrieking. Anna hugged Mike as tight as she could, then they both ran after J.T.
When Anna caught up with the screaming child, she shook him and forced him to look into her eyes. Then she put her arms around both boys and said, "We're going to be all right. We will make it." She said it again, louder. Then she was yelling it with all her might, partly to out-scream J. T. and partly to convince herself.
"We will make it!"
Later, at the hospital, Anna stared in disbelief at her husband of 21 years. There he was, a fit, handsome 50-year-old -- his body already cold. Anna felt a suffocating sorrow, but she kept thinking, John is with Ali. How can I not be happy for him? In spite of her anguish she felt glimmers of an inexplicable calmness.
Anna learned that John had collapsed of a massive heart attack just ten feet from the finish line. He was wearing a baseball cap that read "In Memory of Ali." Anna decided that her husband's soul had crossed the finish line and just kept going.
When Anna woke up the next morning, she felt the sun's warmth on her face. Looking through her window, she was struck by the brilliant fall colors before her.
For the first time since the loss of Ali, she felt as though her life had a crystal-clear purpose. She had to raise her two boys. And she wanted to live for John and Ali by carrying on her husband's goal of raising money to support pediatric cancer research.
Anna had seen how cancer had given Ali deeper insight into life, and she had witnessed John's transformation into a selfless person who had given his life for their daughter. Now it was her turn to act. She wrote a letter to John, which she read at his funeral, the first time that she had addressed a crowd in years.
"I will raise our sons to be like you. And I promise you I will carry on the work you have started with Ali's Army. But now we will call it Ali and Dad's Army. My sweet John, thank you for all you have given us."
Anna, who had not paid a bill or balanced a checkbook for 21 years, now plunged headfirst into leading the crusade for Ali and Dad's Army.
At the time of John's death, the Army had raised about $10,000. Her husband's goal of $500,000 was light-years away.
With so much fund-raising still ahead, there was no choice for Anna but to overcome her awkwardness in front of people. Just days after John's funeral Anna was interviewed on the "Today" show. When she watched the program later, she was stunned to see herself speak so clearly and without hesitation. She knew the words had come naturally because she had spoken out of her deep love for John and Ali.
Besides serving as the spokeswoman for Ali and Dad's Army, Anna also worked tirelessly behind the scenes for each of the fundraising events. Many times the boys stayed up late with her, sitting at the kitchen table stapling flyers. Before and after each race, Anna wrote heartfelt cards to each runner in Ali and Dad's Army.
Hockey games had been added as a fundraising event, and to generate enough ticket sales, each game needed to be organized and publicized. So, among other tasks, Anna solicited ads for the game program from local businesses, an undertaking that forced her to retell her painful story again and again.
But the effect of her direct and heartfelt plea was powerful. Anna's listeners were visibly moved, and they lent their support.
Once, Anna attended a memorial for parents who had lost children to cancer. Each parent spoke tearfully of the child that had died. "I had a son," or "I had a daughter," they would begin.
When it was Anna's turn, she won admiration from the grief-stricken parents by saying, "I have a daughter named Ali. She left this earth, but she goes on, and I continue to celebrate her life."
Without fully realizing it, Anna had reached a turning point, steering herself and others away from their pain with her positive message. Now there were days when Anna didn't cry. Like the time she returned to Notre Dame Academy on Ali's 16th birthday with a bushel of roses. This time she handed a rose to each girl in Ali's class and thanked them. She was happy to see these girls with such bright futures. Ali, she knew, had become a part of them.
Finally, at a hockey game on November 18, 1998, between Ali and Dad's Army -- comprising family friends and former coaches of Ali and her two brothers -- and alumni of the Boston Bruins, the group reached that once so-distant goal of $500,000. Instead of five years, John's dream had been realized in just 13 months.
The money has enabled the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center to fund pediatric-cancer-research programs and to provide alternative forms of therapy to children with cancer.
The Ali Pierce Endowment Fund can be reached at the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center, Two Biotech, Suite 202, 373 Plantation Street, Worcester, Mass. 01605.
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