With Another Relative Lost, These Children Know Grief Too Well

The McMahon children came to All Souls Cemetery in Long Beach on Thursday to mourn a family member for the third time in as many years.

This time, Katie, 13; Meghan, 12; and Matt, 10, cried for their mother, Mona McMahon, 43, who died when she lost control of her car, with the children inside, near Blythe 11 days ago.

Five months ago, they had come to this small chapel to say goodbye to their father, Tom McMahon, 49, a truck driver who died of a heart attack.

But their first visit here was three years ago after their older half-sister, Shanna Ishak, died in a car accident days after her 18th birthday.

The news of the McMahon children’s latest loss shocked parents and teachers at Rio Hondo Elementary and Griffiths Middle School in Downey, where an office manager and a PTA president started a fund for them.

The school community “knew the history behind the children,” said Darlene Kimery, whose daughter is a friend of the McMahon children. Everyone she told, she said, “just broke down.”

The first family tragedy happened when Ishak, a graduate of Lakewood High School, was on her way to a party with four friends. A truck on the freeway hit her side of the car, family members said, killing her.

After that, relatives said, Mona McMahon seemed to grow closer to her three younger children from her second marriage, to Tom McMahon.

“Mona struggled a lot to make her kids happy,” said her niece, Sascha Ishak Wright, 28 of Riverside, with whom the children are now staying. “That’s what kept her going, especially after Shanna passed away.”

After her husband died, Mona McMahon met Wallace Griffith, 39, and the couple had recently been talking about marriage, he said. They had bought a house in Apache Junction, Ariz., and begun moving things there on weekends, Griffith said. It was on a return trip that Mona McMahon lost control of her car.

The children and a friend, Darla David, 17, had gone to the new house May 2. Griffith remembered the children trying out their new beds, still wrapped in plastic.

On Sunday, McMahon wanted to head home so the children wouldn’t miss school on Monday. She drove ahead, and Griffith, driving a rented moving truck, left afterward.

On Interstate 10, emergency vehicles rushed past him, Griffith recalled. Then he came upon the overturned black Suburban that Mona McMahon had been driving.

For an unknown reason, the car had flipped several times, according to the California Highway Patrol. Neither she nor her children had been wearing seat belts, Officer Joe Phipps said, and all four were ejected. Only the friend, Darla David, wore a seat belt, and she remained in the car unhurt.

At the hospital, Matt asked Griffith how his mother was.

“I couldn’t tell him,” Griffith said.

After the funeral Thursday, the children walked to the spot where their mother was entombed next to their older sister -- and around the corner from their father’s crypt.

Contributions can be made to the McMahon Children Memorial Fund, Downey Federal Credit Union, 8237 3rd Street, Downey, CA 90241.