The lack of summer rain has left the Potomac River sluggish and low, with no visible current where it flows past a concrete boat ramp near the visitor’s center at River Bend Park in Great Falls.
Individual pink rose petals sat motionless on the water’s surface on Labor Day when Kevin Long arrived at the park with his family and two dogs.
They glanced at the surface of the water where four months ago, they distributed the scant remains of his mother and stepfather, Diane and George Simmons.
Long said the roses were probably put there by one of Diane’s friends.
Since April 27, when a riverside memorial service was held for the Simmons, Long said he has dropped pistachio nuts and martinis in the river for George, his stepfather, and roses of his own for his mother.
“You can’t say you get closure, because they’re never really gone,” he said. “When somebody makes that big of an impression on you, they never really leave. The frustrating part is you can’t talk to them, as much as you feel like they are still here.”
The Simmons, who lived in Great Falls, had retired in their mid-50s and were just starting to enjoy life.
They were en route to Hawaii aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when it departed from Dulles International Airport last year on Sept. 11.
They were going for a vacation, but also to take the ashes of Diane Simmons’ father back to Pearl Harbor, where he was serving in the military when the Japanese attacked in 1941.
Thus the ashes of a Pearl Harbor veteran commingled at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, with ashes from American Airlines Flight 77 and its 61 dead passengers, including the terrorist hijackers.
Diane’s credit card was recovered, its corners curled in the incendiary heat of the crash, and her checkbook, doused with jet fuel and water from the Pentagon’s sprinkler system, pulverized into dry papier mache.
Some remains were identified from both of the Simmons, and the family held their funeral at River Bend Park on April 27.
SINCE THE SEPT. 11 crash at the Pentagon, all members of the Long family have had grief counseling, said Donna Long, the couple’s daughter-in-law.
“We fell apart as a family emotionally,” she said. “They were such a part of our lives.”
Kevin Long still holds his same job as a vice president of retail sales for Fitness Resource at Tysons, and the family has made no “life-changing” decisions, other than selling the house where the Simmons had lived in Holly Knoll in Great Falls.
Although they have outgrown their Herndon townhouse, the Longs agreed not to make changes for at least one year, Donna Long said.
Kevin Long said the family hasn’t decide whether to attend the local ceremonies planned on Sept. 11 this year.
“I’m not much into group grief with a bunch of people I don’t even know,” he said. When he attended a memorial ceremony at the Pentagon last year, he said, “I felt like they just used the families to get more media coverage.” Now, he avoids “any government-sponsored stuff.”
“I don’t think it’s what the kids need,” he said. “They don’t want to be around a lot of sad people.”
“My parents’ motto was ‘life is good,’” the legend that was encrypted on the license plate of George Simmons’ Mercedes.
“We try to focus on the good things from them,” Kevin Long said.