A Family Tries to Move On After a Soldier's Death

Doug DiCenzo with his family. (Courtesy DiCenzo family)

In the first few weeks after Doug DiCenzo died, people kept telling his wife Nicole to wait a year before she made any major decisions.

T4 6:50 yeah the magic words… wait a year, you’ll know in a year, you’ll be able to do something in a year, just wait a year, figure it out in a year, and I’m like ok, what’s so fabulous about a year? I don’t get it?!

When Doug died, Nicole was living on an army base in Germany, with their 16 month old son.

She had major decisions to make before they got on the plane for the funeral in New Hampshire.

ND T4 8:20 First question do I go back to the states or do I stay a year in Germany, because they give you a year to stay where you are. That’s one, ok, I don’t have a house, I don’t have a hometown anymore, ok so next major decision where do I go? How can I not make a major decision?

Mullen: After the services for Doug, Nicole went back to her native south to look for a house.

But she came back to Plymouth, so her son could grow up where his father did.

His name is Dakin, Nicole calls him Dak.

T1 12:54 I need Dak to grow up to understand what Doug loved, and Doug loved the mountains, and he loved the outdoors. I mean he loved this town… and Dak’ll know that, he’ll have that environment that Doug loved. And everybody that knew him that can tell stories that I can’t tell him, at all. I mean you run into people and they go, ‘oh I remember when…’

Mullen: The other thing about Plymouth – it’s a small town, and pretty much everyone knows Nicole’s story, so she doesn’t have to answer a lot of questions.

After a few months staying with Doug’s family, she just bought a house in town and moved in this month.

T1 1:20 SM: this is really beautiful.
ND: it will be. So no pictures are up or anything yet, so it’s kind of bare.

Mullen: She means the walls, because everywhere else, there are pictures of Doug– lots of wedding photos, some military portraits, a few from when they were stationed in Alaska…

ND: And this isn’t even half of them. I mean I haven’t gotten my pictures out yet, so I’ve gotta be… I’ve gotta be surrounded, so that helps me, it’s… he’s here. You know? Some people deal with it by taking stuff away, and I deal with it by surrounding myself. Pictures, blankets from his shirts, this is his dress shirts… dogtags, just little things like that that can help you. Other people need distance.

Mullen: For Nicole, “moving on” meant buying the house, taking an interior design course.

She says dating is still a huge question – right now, Doug is still her first thought when she wakes up every day.

T1 9:09 it’s more real. But the course of the day, I’ve got a 2 year old, so I get up, take care of him… you know, and still being positive, he would want me to be positive.

Mullen: She has the house to work on too, and Doug’s family to help with that.

Doug DiCenzo. (Courtesy DiCenzo family)

CC T7 3:36 We come over here all the time to help her out, do things for her, we’re having a great time helping her fix up this house, and those are gifts, we just have to look at them as positives out of a negative.

Mullen: That’s Doug’s mom, Cathy Crane.

For her, and her husband, Mark Burzynsky, staying positive is hard because they hear about the war every day.

MB: …and you always cringe when you hear somebody was killed. I read the names in the paper and that means a lot to me now. Used to be just names. Now I try to read about and think about who that person is, or who the families might be… It’s not just Joe Smith from someplace, Texas.

Mullen: Crane says the state’s process of dedicating a new bridge in Plymouth to Doug’s memory has been moving, but painful.

She and Nicole have gotten standing ovations at State House hearings where legislators read lists of Doug’s accomplishments.

CC T7 6:23 and there were so many accolades that he had, you hear more of all the time we forget, he’s Doug to us. He was just a good person. He wasn’t a person with all these honors and badges and accomplishments. He was just Doug.

Mullen: It’s not that his family doesn’t appreciate the tributes.

They know other people have things they need to say or do, when soldiers die.

Crane says she’s been overwhelmed by the number of donations to a summer camp scholarship fund her family set up in Doug’s memory.

CC …and we are sending 30 kids to camp this summer, from this money, and um, it’s “the-power-of-Doug”, you know, and it’s great, and we have to remember that because this is his spirit going on.

Mullen: To mark the day Doug died, his family plans to hike one of his favorite mountain trails, and have a barbecue with friends.

It’s a milestone they say they’re glad to pass, even though it just marks the start of another year without him.

For N-H-P-R News, I’m SM.