An unthinkable tragedy

last updated 8 January 2015

Huntington, N.Y.

One of their children died in infancy in 1982. Another grew to be a 24-year-old young man, but was suddenly lost on Sept. 11, 2001, in the collapsing World Trade Center. Now, Anna May and Louis Jagoda are facing the unfathomable. Last week, their third and last child, Mary, drowned while kayaking off Cape Cod. She was 20. “There is no one left. Our family is gone,” Louis told The Boston Globe. “It’s like somebody picking all the flowers and leaving the weeds.” In the Jagodas’ small Long Island community, friends and neighbors offer whatever comfort they can, while Anna May and Louis are left to wonder how to carry on after so much loss. “It makes no sense,” Louis said. “They are gone. Gone.”