Islanders

Dealing With Great Loss, New Resident Finds the Island Healing
by Jami Bernard

Charlee Miller fully expected to love her new life on Roosevelt Island. She dreamed of how intoxicating it would be to wake each morning to a glorious view, to read books on benches where the water practically lapped at her feet, to practice on her white upright piano with the sun streaming through her north-facing windows. What she didn’t expect, back last Christmas when she signed on for a Riverwalk Place condo, was that the Island would offer her something that wasn’t in the brochures – a place to heal from a heartache that can scarcely be imagined.

Miller, a sturdy, friendly, lively woman who tries to keep the sadness from clouding her sparkling eyes, recalls how proudly she showed off her future home to her son, Lt. Col. Joseph J. Fenty Jr. "It was still under construction, and anyway, it was Christmas, so I couldn’t take him inside the building," said Miller recently over coffee, surrounded by photo albums and memories. "But he ‘got’ it. He was so excited there was going to be a gym in the building. He teased me: ‘Mom, I can just see you working out every day!’"

Joe, 41, was never to see his mother’s new place, or to meet his infant daughter, born in April while Joe was on a risky border-patrol assignment in Afghanistan. Joseph J. Fenty Jr. died along with a handful of his men in a Chinook helicopter crash on the dangerous northeast border of Kunar Province. Joe and his troops had been conducting one of the war’s more delicate assignments: preventing insurgents from crossing the border. They did this by tracking the enemies’ paths and ferreting them out of caves, nooks and crannies, all in terrain and weather so inhospitable it took down their helicopter during a reconnaisance mission in May.

Charlee Miller’s life was blessed and cursed in short order. On April 8, her grandchild was born. She steadied the cellphone that allowed Joe in Afghanistan to hear the first cries of little Lauren Olivia in the New York delivery room where Kristen Fenty was giving birth. "Joe, your baby is about to be born!" she told him. Then, minutes later, "Joe, your baby’s going to cry!"

Joe and Kristen, sweethearts from their school days at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, had been married 19 years leading up to the full-throated entrance into the world of Lauren Olivia, "this little surprise that we never expected in a million years."

Barely a month later, on May 5, Joe’s helicopter, on a ledge amid the rocky, windy crags of Kunar Province, lost purchase. Ten soldiers perished that day, but it took nearly 24 hours of impossible silence before the bodies were identified. Kristen telephoned her mother-in-law at 7:30 on a Sunday morning to confirm their worst fears.

Joe’s baby was born April 8. He died May 5. Miller buried him May 23. Seven days after that, Miller closed on her new condo at Riverwalk Place after closing out her old co-op on the Upper East Side. The same night, she arrived on the Island "with my dog, a suitcase, a comforter, and a book, and I slept in the walk-in closet. I curled up on the comforter with my book and my dog and a little reading light."

Miller has come to the Island by way of Ronkonkoma – where she raised Joe and his sister, Joelle – and Manhattan, where she kept a long-time apartment. Fed up with co-op life, she took the Tram last Christmas to check out the Island, and instantly fell in love. "I looked at this apartment, I saw the FDR Drive, and I said, oh my, can I do this? Can I swing this? Once I saw this, that was it. I said, where do I sign? And I put my Manhattan apartment on the market. And it’s turned out better than I thought it would."

More reader than writer, Miller nevertheless finds the solace of the Island suddenly conducive to writing poetry. "It’s all coming out in words," she explained. "I was always writing in my head, just not on paper. And now, it’s as if I have to put it on paper. It’s part of the healing process."

Miller was a strong woman way before she lost her son. She fled her bank office at 5 World Trade Center, where she was a financial planner, right before everything collapsed on September 11, an incident that underscored Joe’s commitment to serving his country in Afghanistan. Amazingly, Miller’s singed purse was found in the aftermath and the rubble. Of all the photos and personal effects in that purse, she got back a dollar and 38 cents – "They sent me a check!" – and a photo of Joe and Kristen, which now joins all the other precious reminders of a family disrupted. "No other picture made it. That picture made it."

She and Kristen remain as close as before, back when Joe would have to pry Kris off the phone whenever Charlee called, complaining, jokingly, "She’s my mother!"

September 11 was bad, of course. But there’s no sorrow or challenge greater than losing a child – especially one as strong and good and capable as Joe Fenty Jr. "He was a very disciplined young athlete in high school," recalls Miller. "He was always interested in strategy and the kind of mindset it takes to be in the military. He didn’t waste time. He loved structure. He loved his men. He was a natural leader; he was drawn to it."

She recalls Joe as a quiet little boy, always serious and focused, whether at play (with G.I. Joe dolls, of course) or homework. "He had vision, even in his play," she says. "And he loved adventure."

Certainly every mother thinks her child is exceptional, but here’s something of which not every mom can boast: "He was always very conscientious about good health, even when he was little. If I said to my daughter, here’s some liver, it’s good for you, she’d say ugh. If I said that to Joe, he’d say, "Yeah? Then I’ll have more."

Joe was stationed in Afghanistan after 9/11, returning home in 2002. In February, 2006, he was deployed for one year after taking over the command of a special border-patrol unit. He was due back home in November.

"That would have been the first time he’d see Lauren," says Miller. "That was what we were hanging onto. I could just picture him with that baby reaching her little arms out."

Miller makes a quick call to Kristen to check on mother and daughter; they’re still living upstate at Fort Drum, the last of the many places (although, perhaps, the least exotic) where Joe had been stationed over the years. Kristen has a masters in education, and has wrangled good teaching jobs no matter where she and Joe landed: Alaska, Panama, etc. Eventually, though, she will have to figure out the next chapter in her life and move on from the womb of the Army base.

"We are so heartbroken over this loss," says Miller quietly. But she worries more about Kristen and Lauren than about herself, even now. "He was her partner. He was everything."

As for Miller, she’s just returned to her bank job. "How do I cope? There’s been a lot of tears. Today I’m dry," she says, relaxing in her sunny dining room, surrounded by her dog, a cheery bowl of apples, and the white piano she plays for pleasure. She also does pottery and carves out time for her other grandchildren – Shelby, 15; Ashley, 10; and Justene, 4, the children of Joelle Fenty, who lives in Ronkonkoma.

"I have a lot of faith," continues Miller. "I really feel Joe is very close to me. I was very close to him, we had a real mother-son bond. He was stubborn and thick-headed, but we still had a bond. I have to know that he’s nearby, just not in this world. And that he’s out there, and that I have to press on for his little girl and his wife. If I curl up in a ball, that wouldn’t be good for anyone, and he wouldn’t want me to do that."

Indeed, it’s only on replaying the recording of this interview that one can catch the occasional sigh or intake of breath, or a pause before answering that goes a beat too long. Otherwise, Miller is composed and organized, annotating photos stored neatly in red boxes as she describes the beautiful life Joe left behind: Joe and Kristen were outdoor enthusiasts, with photo after photo showing them hiking, skiing, kayaking. "They were for each other," says Miller. "They were real soulmates."

Two scholarships have been established at schools Joe attended. Each year, $500 will be awarded to a student at Connetquot High Sschool who displays the qualities Joe embodied: inegrity, honesty, striving for excellence. And a scholarship has been set up at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to reward "the quiet professional," a description that suited Joe like his full-dress military uniform. "He was a quiet leader," says Miller. "He just looked at his guys and they knew what he meant."

For more information about the scholarships and a memorial fund being established at Fort Drum for soldiers in financial need, readers can contact Miller at Charlee.Miller@yahoo.com.

Meanwhile, Miller is considering a future career once she retires from the bank as a personal financial coach. "Getting your finances together, it’s all about life, and getting through life, and how you design your own life," she says.

She continues to design hers as well, despite her grief. "I walk by the water, and it’s very healing. It’s wonderful. Who knew that this was four minutes from Manhattan?"