OSO — It wasn’t about one person.
It wasn’t about one moment.
It was about all the people who came together to fight against the mud last spring, and the pain each has carried every day since the hill fell.
A year had passed Sunday since the mudslide that took 43 people and changed so many lives.
Hundreds gathered at the spot east of Oso on the rebuilt Highway 530, to hug and shake hands and be together. Lifelong friendships were made in the mud, in the bonds that formed when people dropped their differences to overcome something that was bigger than themselves.
There was no choice last March but to come together. There was only the mud, and the task at hand: bringing home everyone who was lost.
The names of the dead were read, one by one, and marked by the tolling of a bell.
“Today started a new beginning,” said John Hadaway, whose brother, Steven, was the final name read. “For a lot of people it was a new beginning. Before it was month by month and now it’s a year.”
Jami Pszonka came with her family to remember. Her sister in-law Katie Ruthven, 34, lived on E. Steelhead Drive with her husband Shane and the couple’s two boys Hunter, 6, and Wyatt, 4. Shane Ruthven’s parents also were killed in the slide.
“I feel like they’re here, watching over us,” Jami Pszonka said.
There is some peace being out here. So many good times to remember. The slide didn’t steal those memories.
“We didn’t want to be anywhere but here today,” she said.
It was a ceremony of few words.
Joel Johnson, Oso Fire Department chaplain, a pastor and young father, led the group in prayer. He had words prepared, but reading them, saying something rehearsed, didn’t seem right, he said afterward.
So he spoke from the heart, for the people who have become family since the hill fell at 10:37 a.m. on March 22, 2014.
He thanked God for the community’s resilience and the sacrifices people made to care for their neighbors.
Bellevue Fire Lt. Richard Burke told the crowd that Oso taught him compassion. He never once heard anyone ask, “What about me?” They just wanted to help.
The highway was closed for months after the slide. On Sunday, it was closed again for the remembrance. People from Darrington to the east and Oso from the west converged on a grove of 43 cedar trees that was planted as a living memorial.
A crowd had followed Darrington Mayor Dan Rankin westward from a staging area on C-Post Road. One woman spoke of growing her hair out since the slide. She is growing it out one month for each person she knew who was lost. There were 14 people. She has two months left.
Others from Darrington spoke, too, of the numbness of driving past the scarp every day, to get to Arlington, to buy groceries or go to work. Conversations fell silent as they approached the broken earth.
Lasting connections were forged during those days when the mud turned the valley into a gray purgatory. Elaine and Don Young, who live on the eastern boundary of the devastation, last year opened their property to rescue workers. On Sunday, they made breakfast and coffee for some they’d met last spring.
“It’s a humbling experience meeting people who lost so much and are so gracious,” Jeffrey Negrete said Sunday.
Negrete, who lives in Monroe, is with Washington Task Force 1, a search and rescue team. He was part of the first wave of federal rescuers and spent almost two weeks in Oso.
He remembered how well the town took care of the searchers, making sure they had dry clothes and full bellies.
On the Oso side, an honor guard accompanied by pipers led some of those who were first to race into the mud, and then spent months searching until every victim was found.
Rhonda Cook began looking for friends and survivors within hours of the slide. She worked in the debris fields well into summer. On Sunday, she was another face in the crowd, pleased with the ceremony and comforted knowing that she and others had kept their promises and made sure everyone who had been lost was brought back home.
“Hopefully, we can begin moving forward from this point,” she said.
Dayn Brunner’s sister, Summer Raffo, died when the mud swept her car off Highway 530. He spent 39 days looking for her and others. He helped organize Sunday’s event.
“This is a milestone,” he said. “It’s the one-year mark. It is hard to be here and see all these faces.”
It was difficult because they were the faces of loss. It also was reassuring because they were the faces of those who truly understand.
The weight of the last year could be seen on those who survived and those who came to help and everyone else in between. Friends and family huddled together in the biting wind, arms intertwined, pitching in to shoulder the pain and reminding each other that they don’t have to go at it alone.
The land is big enough to hold their grief.
The solemn silence was broken by the sounds of the living: The shuffling of feet, the shuttering of smart phones capturing photographs; a toddler boy in rainboots happily gravitating toward a resting search dog.
As the bell rang 43 times, another small boy in the crowd echoed the sound from atop his parent’s shoulders.
Jovon Mangual’s name was read. A boy named Jojo. He was 13. The people remembered were husbands and wives, grandparents and grandchildren, people who had made their homes in a place surrounded by mountains but still small enough that neighbors knew one another and gardens were shared.
Survivor Tim Ward wore a picture of his wife Brandy on his jacket. He hugged his daughter and son-in-law after Brandy’s name was read. Survivor Bob Aylesworth’s own pin was of a wooden eagle, bearing the name of his mother-in-law, Bonnie Gullikson.
Women wove flowers into the branches of the 43 cedars. One approached a rescuer, passing him an envelope stuffed with creased paper.
“This is just a letter of thanks,” she said.
After the ceremony, John Hadaway reflected on the year. It passed month by month, with profound sadness creeping in around the 21st and hitting hard on the 22nd.
He doesn’t know what the second year will bring.
He has learned many lessons about tragedy and what it takes to heal the human spirit. One in particular stands out.
“You have got to let it out,” he said. “I have cried more in the last year than I did in my entire life.”
Scott North contributed to this report. Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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