January 18, 2009

     — She had her life all planned out. She would play basketball, go to college and get her degree. She would have a good job and get married. She would not be a single mother, like her mother and her sister were. She would not have children until she was 28.
     Catrina Hawley-Stewart now has three children. She is a single parent.
     How old is she?
     "Twenty-eight," she said, and she laughed.
     It's strange how life works out. It's good that Hawley-Stewart, the girls basketball coach at Hillhouse High School, can still laugh. Of course, some days are better than others.
     The youngest child, Canaan, is almost 2 and a handful. Noah is 4. Rayana, 9, helps out as a water girl for her aunt's basketball team.
     They are her sister Candra's children. Candra Stewart died last March, five days after a suspicious fire — which Hawley-Stewart said is still under investigation — destroyed her apartment in New Haven. She was 29.
     Catrina and her mother, Dorothea Stewart-Cooper, share custody of the kids. The children live mainly with Catrina but they also have bedrooms at Dorothea's house five blocks away in Hamden.
     "I wouldn't say it's difficult," said Hawley-Stewart, an All-State basketball player at West Haven (1998) who went on to play at Providence. "It's a change. I had my life planned since I was a teenager. And now here I am, with this big change.
     "It is difficult in a sense of, I think a lot about their future. That's the only pressure I have on me. Am I going to be a good enough parent, as good as my sister? Because my sister was a wonderful mother. She did a great job with them."
     Hawley-Stewart, who led Hillhouse to Class L state championships in her first two years (2004 and 2005), thought about not coaching anymore. It was selfish, she thought. Her niece and nephews were so young and they had just lost their mother and their home and everything in it. They needed her.
     Then her niece asked her, "What are we doing this summer? We doing basketball?"
     They did basketball. Hawley-Stewart coaches an AAU team, the Connecticut Lady Blazers. Then she came back to coach at Hillhouse, which is 9-1 and ranked sixth in The Courant's state ratings. She said she's a better coach now, more in tune with her players, less inclined to yell at referees.
     "I have such great kids [on the team]," she said. "They're an inspiration. For kids to be there for an adult the way they were is breathtaking."
     Her players all came to the funeral. They baby-sit when Hawley-Stewart, who works as an in-school suspension teacher at Hillhouse, needs to do an errand or take a nap. The children are often at practice. Rayana has a special bond with senior Dannisha Pierce, who lost her mother when she was 9.
     "I understood what they are going through," Pierce said. "I understand how hard it is to deal with it. As she grows up, it's going to get better, but she's not going to get over it. I'm still not over it."
     The kids weren't at home the night of the fire, but they were close by, at a relative's house. Rayana doesn't talk much about her mother or what happened. Canaan still recognizes his mother's picture. Noah talks to his mom. He goes to church with his grandparents and tells them, "My mom's an angel."
     "We say prayers at night," Hawley-Stewart said. "We say good morning, good night. We try to get them to always remember their mother."
     Hawley-Stewart said Canaan and Noah's father is also involved and embraces Rayana as if she were his own child. Hawley-Stewart and her mother lean on each other often. Both miss Candra, who was a drug and alcohol counselor. Both try to stay strong for her children.
     "If we didn't have each other, we don't know how we would handle this," Dorothea said. "We both have each other's back.
     "She does her best. She's a good aunt. For someone to not have any children, to all of a sudden have three ..."
     "I said I wanted to wait until I was 28 ... and I got my kids," Hawley-Stewart said. "I got my sister's kids. I couldn't have anything better. It's very sad and it hurts a lot, but I have a big part of my sister. My niece looks just like her.
     "She wants to play basketball. She told me, 'Auntie, I have a hard decision to make. I want to be a doctor, but I want to be a basketball player.'"
     Hawley-Stewart laughed. Rayana takes ballet and hip-hop lessons. She wants to learn to play guitar. Noah wants to take karate. Hawley-Stewart's day is a jumble of school and practices and games and dropping off and picking up kids.
     "You can do both," she told her niece.
     A fund was set up last year for the three children. Donations can be made to Candra's Fund, c/o Connex Credit Union, 350 Boston Post Road, Orange, CT 06477.