"Our house has been full of people," said Mike Perla, Jennifer's older brother. "Even her middle school teachers came. People brought photos, videos, posters. . . . To see all these pictures of her dancing, so happy. That's been good for us. And we're so grateful for the things they've done for my sister."
Jennifer's prom-night death was a shock to the school's psyche, said Assistant Principal Debra Bryant.
"We couldn't fathom what we were hearing at first," she said. "Then everybody just rallied together -- kids, teachers, staff, spouses, friends. . . . There was no big corporate help or anything. Everybody just did what they could to help the family get through this."
When Ruiz was widowed unexpectedly, her first call was to her children's Canoga Park elementary school.
"I didn't know what to do," she told me. "I needed some help, to know how to tell my kids that their dad had passed away."
Within 10 minutes, a grief counselor had called and was walking her through the process.
She and her husband were raising seven children, including three they adopted from her sister. She has one in almost every grade at Fullbright, and two who have graduated.
"The teachers came over and we had rosaries for my husband. The parents, they brought me food for the kids," Ruiz said. "The teacher my junior high son had in pre-K, she is still always there when I need someone to talk to. The school has done that for me, when I needed them most."
--
When I met Kenza at the family's cramped North Hollywood apartment -- where the living room furniture has been shoved into corners to accommodate her wheelchair and hospital bed -- she told me how lucky she feels to have friends who have kept her spirits up since that night in February when she was struck by a car while walking her bike in a Sherman Oaks crosswalk.
During her three months in hospitals, her room was constantly crowded with buddies, who played the guitar and sang with her, smuggled in sushi, polished her nails, shared stories from their peace rallies and details of their fundraisers.
But she didn't know about the adults until the day she got a four-hour pass from the hospital.
"I'd been in the hospital for two months and I was in such a hurry to get out," she recalled. "But my dad kept me waiting while he was down in the lobby." When he finally came and wheeled her down, she said, "there was this big crowd of women having a meeting about me."
