"One minute I was sitting in the car and we were talking about where we were going to eat," says Fricano, recalling the Easter Monday car accident that claimed the lives of her mother, father and brother 39 years ago. "The next I was sitting on the grass in a pile of glass, with Easter eggs all over the place."

That accident and the ensuing grief were the impetus for a great deal of soul searching that carried Fricano through a series of experiences through which she helped other people deal with death and dying. On Mother's Day, May 12, Fricano, a Certified Oncology Nurse, will graduate from the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville, N.Y. with a bachelor of science degree in nursing.

While marriage and three children helped to ease the burden of her early losses, Fricano's felt the need to delve into grief counseling for others. She served as a volunteer lay chaplain in the oncology unit at Southside Hospital and later as a trained volunteer with terminally ill patients and their families through Hospice of the South Shore. She also helped establish a bereaved parents support group. As she worked with dying patients and their families, Fricano found herself drawn further toward nursing.

"I was very motivated to do something positive with the bad things that had happened in my life," she says. "But I needed to be sure that I was coming from a point of strength and not from a point of weakness."

Convinced that she was prepared for the rigors of nursing, Fricano enrolled in the nursing program at Suffolk County Community College in the late 1980s. She balanced her coursework with a part-time job at a nursing home and the care of her children, who ranged in age at that time from 4 to 12. During her last year of nursing school, she also worked part-time as a nurse's aide at Good Samaritan Hospital. In 1991, she graduated from SCCC with her R.N. degree and a 3.90 grade point average.

She took the exam to become a certified oncology nurse and accepted a position at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. where she provided bedside care and administered chemotherapy to oncology patients. She was later promoted to study coordinator, a position she holds today.

Fricano is quick to point out that none of this would have been possible without the love and support of her husband, Glenn. "What God took away from me, He gave back in another form," she says. "We can't change what happened [earlier in our lives], but what we can have some control over is how we respond to it. I'm a firm believer in that."

On Mother's Day - Sunday, May 12 - Fricano will join 1,500 graduates at C.W. Post's 44rd annual commencement exercises. C.W. Post is one of six campuses of Long Island University, the eighth largest private university in the United States.