The Palm Beach Post
Copyright 2002
Saturday, November 23, 2002
A SECTION
HOW PAM GRUNOW SHAPED HER OWN NEW PATH
Emily J. Minor
Ran all editions.
People sent her things.
A CD. A nice note. Beautiful angels.
"Even stories about things in their lives," says Pam Grunow.
And it helped.
"I want them to know that, now, I too will always reach out,"
she
says. "And I'll teach my kids to reach out."
These are the things Barry Grunow's widow wants to talk about.
The gun. The jurors. The strangers who, in ways both pushy and
unobtrusive, shared bits and pieces of their own private struggles.
At night when the kids were in bed - finally - Grunow, 38, would
sit in the silence and loneliness of her bizarrely altered life
and
make notes about the things she would tell people if she were a
take-
the-podium kind of person.
Which she is not. Not by any stretch of the wildest imagination.
"Filing a lawsuit is not anything I ever imagined myself doing,"
she said.
Friday, nearly 2 1/2 years after her husband was shot and killed
by a 13-year-old student on the last day of school at Lake Worth
Middle School, Pam Grunow summoned up the courage to do something
she hates. Sit and talk. About it all.
At her side were attorneys Robert Montgomery and Rebecca Larson,
who were careful to steer the conversation away from any of the
details they think are too difficult for Grunow to discuss.
Things like grief. And moving on.
Grunow, the mother of a daughter, 3, and a son who just turned 8,
practically became public property after her husband was shot and
killed. There have been two trials since Barry Grunow's death: One,
the criminal case against the student who shot him. The other, a
civil lawsuit against the makers of the small revolver used in the
shooting.
She couldn't sit through either of the trials and makes no
apologies - although she does quietly admit it was hard for Barry's
family to understand her glaring absence from the courtroom.
"I would have if I could have," she says.
But it was just too much.
Instead, she likes to tell stories about her husband, the tall
man with the irrepressible smile. The teacher who was so well-
loved. These two would-be teachers - she used to teach learning-
disabled kids - met as students at Palm Beach Community College.
Barry used to hitchhike from the Lake Worth campus to his home in
Palm Beach Gardens.
She remembers the first time she saw him. It was when some
girlfriends picked him up to give him a lift. (Relax, they knew
him.)
There he was, strolling along in his Barry Grunow way, "wearing
his bell-bottoms."
"And it wasn't when bell-bottoms were in style," she says,
offering a genuine smile. "But he didn't care."
And that's why she loves this next story:
After Lee-Anne was born, the Grunows put their son, Sam, in a
little preschool program. Pam used that time to take their daughter
to the park.
There was a group of them, young mothers, women who stayed home,
packed healthy lunches, worried about too much TV in their homes.
And something used to happen during these outings - something that
she still treasures as much as anything else.
Barry used to drive 10 minutes across town to come meet them at
the park. It was tough doing that on a teacher's lunch hour.
But there he'd be, smiling, walking across the lawn to the small
group of women with the young children.
"It was just so he could see us during the day," she said.
"He
was the one dad who would come to the park."
That's why losing Barry is still so hard.
She's moved out of the Lake Worth house where the two began their
small family. Ostensibly it was to be closer to her son's Montessori
school program. But when you look at Pam Grunow, you realize the
memories of that house - the porch and the yard and the butterfly
garden outside - you realize all those things helped her pack.
Jurors 'gave from their lives'
Between the stories about Barry at the park and Barry in his bell-
bottoms and Barry probably not knowing that gun in his face was
real, Pam is insistent on reading from the list. The one she'd write
whenever she had a spare moment. "And I have a lot of
interruptions," she says.
It's written on notebook paper, college ruled, in her
handwriting, and she's used a yellow highlighter so she won't forget
to mention the real reason she's sitting here, so nervous and sad
and emotional that she always seems to be pretty much on the verge
of tears.
The first thing. She'd like to thank the jurors who recently
decided Valor Corp. was 5 percent responsible for Barry's death.
And
it's not so much that she wants to thank them for the verdict,
although that - her legal team points out in half a heartbeat -
was
quite nice.
She wants to thank them "because they gave from their lives."
And this is a woman who now appreciates life more than any of us
can imagine.
No. 2. The lawsuit against Valor. It began as a family-supported
thing. Barry's family, including his mother and brothers and sister
-
most of whom live here - wanted to file the lawsuit because: how
else to force change in gun laws in America?
But then, as the family dynamics developed, as the Grunows all
grieved in their private, painful ways, Barry's relatives decided
they didn't want the lawsuit to go forward.
At night, she "did some real soul-searching."
And she decided to keep going.
"I chose to do that because of what I learned about this
particular weapon," she said.
Junk gun. Saturday night special. So light and cheap, it looks
like a toy.
In her heart of hearts, Pam Grunow is convinced Barry didn't know
Nathaniel Brazill was pointing a gun in his face that May afternoon.
"How could he have been smiling if he knew?" she asks.
And you can tell it's a question she's asked herself many, many
times.
So, despite the public's reaction ("she's greedy") and
the
difficulty of going to court on two occasions and the almost
crippling nervousness of doing interviews like this one, Grunow
went
forward.
To crack the door. And while she's no Sarah Brady, politically
connected and suave at the microphone, she is what she is, a woman
who lost the man she loved.
There are happy times - like her son's recent birthday party with
family and friends. She is private, always has been, but has been
able to keep the friends she had before Barry's death. Barry's
brother, Kurt, remains a big part of her children's lives, taking
them to dinner and the park and whatnot.
'Burdened' about shooter
There are things that still bring incredible pain and confusion.
Grunow will not talk about Brazill in any detail. Indeed, she said
she doesn't think Barry ever mentioned the student by name at home
-
although, in retrospect, he might have told her a story about
something funny Brazill once did in class.
"This was a kid who liked Barry," she says. "That
leaves me
burdened."
On the day that Pam Grunow lost the only man she'd ever loved,
she was home mending some clothes.
It was early afternoon, and - all of a sudden - she says she felt
"so tired."
And so the lovely young woman with the 8-month-old baby lay down
to take a quick rest. And then, almost like a premonition some
people insist they really do get when a loved one is killed
suddenly, she felt strange. Weird. Out of her head.
The next thing she knew, the phone was ringing. Barry was dead at
age 35. A friend showed up at her door. And Pam Grunow was pushed
off into her new life.
About a year ago, she did something she was finally ready to do.
Grunow took her wedding ring. And Barry's. And she had them made
into one lovely gold band, which she wears on her wedding-ring
finger.
"I watched them melt the two into liquid and then take a new
form," she says.
It was a start. And, these days - whether it's a laugh out of
nowhere or a jury verdict that could bring national change - a start
is really all she can ask for.
- emily_minor@pbpost.com
TABULAR OR GRAPHIC MATERIAL SET FORTH IN THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT DISPLAYABLE
PHOTO (C & B&W); Caption: 1. (C) SHANNON O'BRIEN/Staff
Photographer Pam
Grunow, 38, takes a moment to compose herself Friday during an interview
at her
attorneys' office in West Palm Beach. She says she'd never imagined
filing a
lawsuit. 2. (B&W) Photo courtesy of Grunow family Pam Grunow
with Barry (to the
right of her), Barry's mother, Phyllis, family friend Tim Kennedy
and young Sam
Grunow, who is now 8 years old.