But Brenda just couldn’t do that. She often
told me, ‘I wish that bullet that got Mom had
killed me. I hate this life.’”
Tracy, who spent much of her 20s using
alcohol “to keep me from feeling,” knows
exactly how her sister felt but insists it’s the
memory of her mother that keeps her getting
out of bed each morning. “There have been
times I’ve wanted to give up, but I push
through for her,” says the twice-married
grandmother of six. “I want her to be proud of
me. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.”
Every year on the anniversary of the
massacre, Tracy places her mother’s photo on
a table by the front window of her house and
surrounds it with lit candles. Her story has no
closure, no happy ending. “Time doesn’t heal
anything,” she says, shaking her head. “When
I was a little girl, I used to stare at this sign
[Jones] had nailed up over his chair in church
that read, ‘Those who forget the past are
condemned to repeat it.’ I didn’t understand
what that meant back then, but I do now.
■ By Johnny Dodds
“I was given
a second chance at
life,” says Tracy (with
her father, Jerry, at
her home in Ukiah).Jones’s followers
were forced to turn
over their passports
when they arrived at
Jonestown.Empty bottles of
drugs used in the
mass suicide.