A Mother's Grief Never Ends, But It Can Help Other Kids

Jordan and Ashley Siegel were the light of their mother’s life. Two years after their death, she is working to ensure Royal Oak kids have some of the same experiences that enriched her children’s lives. (Patch file photo)

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Christie Siegel didn’t stop being a mother when her children, Jordan, 14, and Ashley Siegel, 11, were killed in a horrific hit-and-run accident in June 2012. She has said that parenting the children was the greatest joy of her life, and now that they’re gone, she can’t turn off her nurturing tendencies.

All she can do is transfer them.

“My big thing is finding a new purpose in life, because being a mom was a job and I got fired,” Siegel said in an emotional interview with MLive/The Ann Arbor News. “I was told, ‘You’re done, go find something new to do.’ What do you do when you’re not done nurturing?”

In the years since her children have been gone, Siegel has focused her energy on helping other kids to ensure they have some of the same experiences her children had. Rare was the day that she wasn’t shuttling them back and forth from cheerleading, football, lacrosse and soccer.

“My kids were my life,” Siegel told Patch two years ago.

The Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund was born to help fill the void. The first year, a pub crawl raised more than $10,000 for the Royal Oak Youth Assistance program. The event was so successful that Royal Oak Youth Assistance opened a separate account – the Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund, which got another $5,600 after the 2013 pub crawl.

In all, more than $22,875 has been raised.

Siegel hopes to raise more Thursday at the 3rd Annual Autumn Harvest to be held at the Royal Oak Farmers Market from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 12, with all proceeds going to the Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund. The event features live music, appetizers, beer, wine, raffles and a 50-50 raffle. Registration for the event is taking place now. It costs $40 in advance and $45 on the day of the event.

The money has sent kids to camp, purchased yearbooks for students who otherwise wouldn’t have financially been able to get one, paid for a trip to Washington, DC, for 11 kids, and financed other programs.

Helping other kids is some solace. But it doesn’t erase a nurturing mother’s grief.

“Sometimes, I think I haven’t faced the grief, really,” Siegel told MLive/The Ann Arbor News. “The more you say ‘My kids have passed away’ or ‘My kids are dead,’ the more it’s a reality.”

If you’d like to donateto the Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund, send checks payable to the fund to Royal Oak Youth Assistance, c/o Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund, 1601 N. Campbell, Royal Oak, MI, 48073.