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Janice and Tim Kerlee Sr. walked around the Texas A&M Bonfire Memorial on Sunday evening, saying "we'll see you later" to the 12 Aggies -- including their son -- who died after the 1999 collapse on campus.
The couple moved to College Station from Tennessee shortly after their son Tim Kerlee Jr. became the youngest victim of the accident. They built a new life counseling students and helping others heal, all the while learning to heal themselves, they said.
Janice Kerlee even became an ordained minister as part of her recovery process, she said Monday. She recently was assigned by the Methodist church to lead a congregation in Lissie, about 90 miles away from College Station in Wharton County.
So the Kerlees packed their belongings Monday and said goodbye to the community they have called home -- off and on -- for the past eight years.
"This community has given us more than we've been able to give them," Janice Kerlee said as she took a break from packing. "You don't find places like College Station. I think that's why so many retired people come back here. They're coming back to Heaven on Earth."
The days, months and years after 17-year-old Tim Kerlee Jr.'s death have been trying, the parents said Monday, but they steadfastly have relied on their faith.
"I think it's God that helps us get through all this, not so much each other," said Tim Kerlee Sr., who has two children from a previous marriage. "I've said many times that I don't know how anyone who is not a person of faith manages to deal with the type of thing that we've had to deal with. It's just unimaginable."
Packing for the move proved difficult, Janice Kerlee said Monday, adding that she kept coming across items that remind her of her only son.
"I found some cards that he wrote to us," she said. "It's very hard emotionally, but the Lord has revealed to both of us how little the material things of this world matter. By taking the emphasis off of ourselves and putting it on others, it has helped."
The Kerlees moved to College Station in the spring of 2000 and began volunteering with the campus ministry at A&M United Methodist Church, leading Bible studies, sharing their experience with others and providing "unofficial counseling." Janice Kerlee said she felt like she needed to know more about the Bible, so she went to Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, living in a dorm for a year and coming home on weekends.
The Kerlees then moved to north Texas for two years so Janice could work as a student pastor. They returned to College Station last summer.
"This is our family here in College Station," Janice Kerlee said. "From the time of the accident I've said that bonfire didn't burn that year, but the spirit of Aggieland burned brightly. You could not have asked for more love and support than we have received and we continue to receive.
"We tried to give to the students but they give back to us tenfold, a hundredfold," she said.
Janice Kerlee said some of the friendships have faded over the years, but many remain strong. She will travel to New Mexico in October to perform a wedding ceremony for Jennifer Andrews, one of her son's friends from Squadron 16 in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets.
The Kerlees, who were named Texas A&M's Parents of the Year in 2003, never filed a lawsuit or assigned blame for the bonfire collapse. Janice Kerlee said some people think it's unusual that they chose to move to a town where their son lost his life, but making a home in College Station has been a blessing, she said.
"We have more peace here than we do just about anywhere," she said. "You can't run away from it, so you might as well embrace it. Our son loved this university and this community."
Tim Kerlee Jr., in fact, was a hero in the last moments of his life, his father said Monday. The teenager was on the third tier of the bonfire stack, securing logs with wire, when the structure collapsed. As the Eagle Scout lay trapped under the wreckage, friends said he directed rescue workers to other injured students and prayed with a paramedic for her safety. Inscribed on the campus bonfire memorial next to Tim's name are the words he said to rescue workers: "Help my buddies first; I'm OK."
"We'll always miss our son, but it's nice to know that he's remembered that way," Tim Kerlee Sr. said Monday, choking back tears. "It just makes me so proud."
The father, who is retired from the U.S. Department of Defense, said he has loved living in College Station, attending Aggie sporting events and volunteering at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum. The Kerlees plan to return to College Station for events in the future, and eventually may return for good, Janice Kerlee said.
"The football games have priced us out, but we will come back for baseball, softball, basketball and tennis matches," she said. "I hope we are able to return to this area eventually but that's up to the Methodist church. You agree to go where you're sent and where there's a need."
Janice Kerlee said she understands that her sadness won't ever go away entirely.
"The loss of a child is the hardest loss that there is," she said. "When we were told that it would take up to five years to heal from the loss of our child, we couldn't believe it. We thought that was too long. Now I think that's a conservative number. You do heal, but your perspective of things changes. Your priorities change. You learn what's really important. And you're always scarred. There's always a hurt."
As the parents walked around the Bonfire Memorial on Sunday evening, they said they remembered all the young people who lost their lives and "said goodbye in our own way."
"We said, 'We'll see you later,'" she said. "We'll see them again in spirit."
• April Avison's e-mail address is april.avison@theeagle.com.
