In an anguished eulogy, the husband of the woman who drove her SUV onto Metro-North tracks in Westchester, killing herself and five train riders, told mourners Friday that the family’s “hearts go out to” her victims.
“Our hearts go out to everyone who’s been involved with this,” said a tearful Alan Brody, the husband of Ellen Brody, at a Dobbs Ferry synagogue, where about 500 family and friends were gathered.
Brody suggested that his wife got confused and went onto the tracks despite the train barreling toward her that night because she wasn’t familiar with her surroundings.
He said Brody, a jewelry store saleswoman, had been on her way to meet a client at the time and was unfamiliar with the neighborhood in Valhalla where the crash occurred.
“Somehow she ended up in this strange and unfamiliar place,” said Alan Brody, a native of Durban, South Africa. “I once drove there in that area two years ago, and I remember thinking, ‘This looks like my old home in Africa,’ and I was also thinking, ‘Are you kidding me? Who could imagine a major commuter railroad running through this? How could it?’”
Alan Brody also told sobbing mourners that he wished he could have been his wife’s “superhero” to save her.
“I always tried to be there for her,” said the author and journalist.
“I generally succeeded, but on that night, I wanted to be her superhero,” he said.
“Only God knows why I couldn’t be there to save her.”
The Brodys’ three tearful daughters also stood to memorialize their mom, who had just left her sales job at a Chappaqua jewelry shop when her Mercedes SUV inexplicably stopped in the path of the oncoming train. The car and the train’s first two cars erupted in fatal flames.
“Mom, Mom, Mom,” sobbed the youngest, high schooler Alexa, standing at a podium with her sister Julia, a University of Delaware student, and Danielle, who is a Delaware graduate.
“Your smile lights up the world and my life, and right now it’s so dark,” the teen cried.
“The light went out.”
The husband called the wreck “a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.”
On the night of the crash, he recalled, “I came back from a meeting in the city, and I realized we hadn’t heard from her.
“I went out to look for her,” he said. “I went up to Valhalla.” Here, his voice trailed off.
“The last time I spoke to her, her heart was full of the optimism we know her for,” he said.
The two had met at a friend’s party, he said.
“Somehow she just stood out from the crowd,” he said. “It was her youthful effervescence that caught my attention. And that enthusiasm, effervescence and exuberance never lagged, never got old.”
He spoke of the first party they threw together, at which she hoped her college pals would also find romance.
“Our love was so powerful, it was so infectious, she wanted everyone to have that.”
He added, “She always tried to find a solution for people even if they didn’t want it. You couldn’t just cry in her shoulder, she had to make it right.”
“She was forever funny, upbeat and never short on detail … Our family was always there to revel in her sunlight.
“Ellen brought the party with her,” he said.
Choking up, he added: “Ellen lived life to the fullest.”
