In Robin Tolsma's mind, the dream scene won't stop playing.

It starts with a typical night. She's opening a takeout box for dinner — Robin's

never been much of a cook — or watching TV with her kids in the living room of their

Lancaster home.

Then she looks up, and there he is: her husband Darren, coming through the side door and

tossing his keys on the counter like he used to.

"Hiya, guys," he says. "I'm home."

In the dream, he never goes away — this man she loved, whose death on Flight 3407 so

drastically changed her life.

This man: the one she met on a blind date on Jan. 2, 1983, a date engraved in her memory.

This man: the one who loved his lawn so much he'd call up Google Earth to see if his grass

was greener than the neighbor's. It always was.

This man: the one who called when he was going to be late, as he did from the cabin of

Colgan Air Flight 3407 on Feb. 12, 2009 — the night that changed everything.

It's been a year since the Colgan airplane plummeted out of a freezing winter sky and into

the ground in Clarence, killing 50 people. Many families were deeply affected by that moment.

They still grieve, and will mark the anniversary of the crash this week in private ways.

Robin Tolsma will grieve, too. But she will no doubt also use the anniversary to speak

publicly about her pain, the way she's done for the past 12 months.

In print and on TV. In photographs and speeches. On the radio and in Washington. Tolsma has

put her grief front and center in the public eye — and, in doing so, has become one of

the faces people in Western New York associate with the tragedy of Flight 3407.

She's done so while waging her own battle with leukemia — a diagnosis she received a

few months before Darren died and which she has, until now, kept private.

"I'm going to be fine," said Tolsma, of her illness. "[But] my fear is, I don't want to

leave the kids without a parent. I think of that all the time."

In Tolsma's year of visibility, many people have praised her and urged her on. A few have

criticized — mostly because of the personal approach she has taken in airing her grief.

For instance, she let TV cameras capture the moment in which she received her husband's

wedding ring from authorities who had found it in the wreckage.

"We did hear comments from people ... saying, "enough already,' " said Luke Moretti, a WIVB

reporter who got an outpouring of response to a series he aired about Tolsma last year.

"Certain people, even [other 3407] family members, didn't want to see [her] all the time."

For Robin, all this has made for a year of transformation.

She's a different person than she was a year ago — stronger, tougher, more

independent. She has heard some of the criticism, and knows this: nothing will keep her from

being outspoken.

"I'm doing this for Darren," said Tolsma, her brown eyes tearful but steely. "This is not

going to happen again in my lifetime because I didn't do the right thing."

Stepping into public

Tolsma, 44, entered the spotlight as a widow of Flight 3407 within days of the crash on

Long Street in Clarence Center.

In the hectic early hours of recovery work, most victims' family members were gathered in

hotels and homes. Stunned and shaken, many felt they were in no shape to talk to reporters or

speak in public.

But a few people stepped forward to organize the family members. Kevin Kuwik, the boyfriend

of victim Lorin Maurer; Ken Mellett, the father of victim Coleman Mellett; and a few others

shifted into informal leadership roles.

Tolsma, a teacher, ventured the idea that the families should issue a short statement of

thanks to emergency workers. The others asked Tolsma if she could read the statement to the

workers, aloud, on behalf of the group. She decided she could.

"Robin was the English teacher — she drafted the statement, she read it to the group,

and we all stood behind her. And then she read it at the site, to the rescue workers," said

Kuwik, of Ohio. "Robin's a trouper. I give Ken and Robin credit — people were so

floored, so devastated ... everyone was trying to grasp the enormity of what happened."

After the cleanup ended and the role of the Flight 3407 families group shifted to advocacy,

in calling for better pilot training and other safety measures, Tolsma continued to be a

natural choice for public speaking, Kuwik and others said.

Soon, her voice and face seemed to be everywhere: on radio, in pictures in The Buffalo News

and other papers, on TV in frequent stories about the aftermath of the disaster. When some

families went to Washington to attend hearings, Tolsma went along, and was photographed

sitting with her daughter Nikki in the front row.

She has the phone numbers of reporters and TV producers in her cell phone. But she usually

doesn't have to call — they find her. On a recent weekday, when news broke about an

attorney being fined for soliciting 3407 families, her phone buzzed with a request for an

interview; that was just days after a TV station filmed a segment about her for the upcoming

anniversary of the crash.

"Very early on, she was a spokesperson for the group," said Susan Bourque, sister of victim

Beverly Eckert. "She is eloquent — and she is not afraid."

Hiding the pain

Tolsma is certainly well-spoken and thoughtful. And, she is not afraid as long as she is in

public, talking about Darren's death as a way of putting a face to the fiery crash that was so

unprecedented in Western New York.

But when the cameras go off and the microphones are put away, it's a different story. Then

the former Robin Kazmierczak of West Seneca, who kissed Darren for the first time in the

Wintergarden on that blind date so many years ago, lets the pain and the grief seep out.

"That's what the shower is for. That's what driving alone in my car is for," she said, her

voice cracking. "Even with my kids — I don't want them to see me crumble. I have to be

the strong one."

Part of what makes the mourning period so hard is that the crash, for 3407 families, has

never really ended.

While the rest of Western New York watched initial news reports about the event and then

moved on with their lives, the victims' families have faced fresh stages of shock and sorrow

every month, if not every week, since it happened.

There have been memorial services and vigils. Families have had to deal with hearing of the

identification of their loved one's body, and accepting the remains for burial; sometimes this

has happened multiple times for a single family. Some families received deliveries at their

homes of boxes of personal effects of their loved one. Then there were the hearings in

Washington, as well as the dedication of a common grave in Forest Lawn last fall.

Every new moment brings a fresh wave of pain, said Pauline Boss, an expert on the aftermath

of tragic death and author of the book "Ambiguous Loss."

"What we now know is, there is no closure," said Boss, who has worked with 9/11 families.

"You learn to live with grief."

Despite the occasional criticism of Tolsma — which Boss said is commonly seen in the

aftermath of disaster — speaking out about one's pain can actually be a healing process,

the St. Paul therapist said.

"[Robin] has found a way to make meaning out of it. That's better than staying frozen,"

Boss said. "That's a very good way to cope."

Getting through the day

Tolsma meets an interviewer on a recent weekday morning in the kitchen of her spacious,

neutral-toned home in a subdivision off Walden Avenue. Out back, the new inground pool that

she had installed last year is covered with a blanket of snow. Tolsma looks at it with

troubled eyes; it is a symbol of how much her life has changed.

"It's got to take the place of vacations, now," she said of the pool. "I won't fly again

until the FAA reauthorization bill passes. That's my vow."

The FAA bill, which Tolsma traveled to Washington last spring to promote with Nikki, 17,

and her son Darren, 20, has passed the House of Representatives but was sidelined in the

Senate, now overshadowed by health care legislation.

"I'm scared it's not going to happen at all, to be honest with you," said Tolsma. "If it

doesn't happen soon, it's not going to happen."

Most of the response Tolsma had gotten to her public grief has been positive. She gets

recognized at the supermarket, at restaurants, in malls. She gets items in the mail from

people who don't know her but want to reach out: a book, a poem. The other day at J.C.

Penney's, a saleswoman came up to Tolsma when she was shopping with another Flight 3407 widow,

Jennifer West. The woman whispered: "I think of you guys all the time."

Her work has won praise in other quarters as well. Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence, said the

ongoing, very visible expression of grief by Tolsma and others has been key in pushing forward

the airplane safety legislation, which would require new pilots to have at least 1,500 hours

of flight time upon hiring, up from the current 250.

"[People like Robin] are very important," said Lee. "When you can attach a voice and a

story to a piece of legislation — if that doesn't move congressmen and senators, they

shouldn't be here."

But there's a downside to the spotlight: it never gives you a moment to let yourself go.

Tolsma feels the need to hold herself together at all times — for her children, her

friends, Darren's co-workers at Northrup Grumman, her lawyers, the media.

This is especially hard to do on days when she is feeling less than 100 percent.

Tolsma was diagnosed five years ago with the autoimmune disease lupus, and more recently, a

few months before Darren died, learned she has leukemia. Because Tolsma maintains a perky,

chipper attitude, no one has guessed she is ill.

"We were sure I was going to go first," Tolsma said, flashing a sad smile. She remembers

how she waited a few weeks after hearing her diagnosis to tell Darren, in order to figure out

how best to break the news. "He was wonderful. He said right away, "We're going to beat this.' "

A support system

Tolsma sleeps very little these days. She said that in one bleak period last year she went

as many as 90 hours without real rest. She texts, reads and watches TV until the wee hours of

the morning. Tolsma gave up her job teaching seventh-grade English at Lancaster Middle School

after the crash, but she still helps former students with late-night homework questions.

Her fuel many days comes in the form of Starbucks coffee — particularly the quad-

venti caramel macchiatos she's addicted to, which come with four espresso shots.

The coffee might be a crutch, but those who know Tolsma best say she's grown during this

year of crisis into a woman who is stronger than ever.

"She's strong for everybody," said Tolsma's mother, Judy Kazmierczak. "She amazes me. She

never asks for help. We are just there for her — if she needs a hug, we are there."

Then there is her relationship with Jennifer West, the widow of Flight 3407 victim Ernie

West, a colleague of Darren's at Northrup Grumman.

The two women, who met for the first time a few weeks before the crash at a company party,

have become so close in their mutual grief that they call themselves "sisters." They act it,

too, sending each other into laughing fits and crying jags. Tolsma and West talk constantly,

visit each other's homes all the time, and bond over the unique experiences that tragic death

forces on a family.

"I don't know what I'd do without her," West said of Tolsma. "She's the first one I call

when things go wrong."

On a recent Monday, the pair met for breakfast at their usual stop, the Cracker Barrel on

Transit Road. After eggs, coffee and cobbler, they walked out through the giftshop, pausing at

a rack of baseball caps.

Tolsma selected one and handed it to West.

"Things are bad — send chocolate," the hat read.

The two women snickered in appreciation, then grew silent. Together, they walked out, into

the cold gray morning.