When Zack DePiero visits the home where he grew up, he doesn’t remember the good times he had there, first as a boy, and later a man with his own family.
Those happy memories disappeared with his parents last year in the worst mass casualty weather event in Bucks County memory.
Enzo DePiero, 78, and his wife, Linda, 74, were driving to their Newtown Township home after dinner at their favorite restaurant on July 15, 2023 when a sudden, brutal rainstorm stalled over Upper Makefield.
The heavy rain overflowed a normally gentle creek and the angry water rushed downhill sweeping away 11 vehicles traveling on Washington Crossing Road, including the one the DePieros were in.
The couple were among seven people who died in the flash flooding.
“It’s like you had a big canvas and a massive hole appeared in the center,” said Zack DePiero, of New Hope.
What is left now at his childhood home is the work of preparing it for the next family who will make it a home again, he said.
“The aftershock is still there every time you walk into the house,” the 41-year-old DePiero said. "It’s very, very hard being there. It’s absolutely brutal. It’s a sad depressing place to be.”
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Inside the house on Tall Oaks Lane everything looks the same as it did that horrible Saturday last summer.
Two pairs of summer sandals sit in the doorway. To do lists on the refrigerator or the table in his mom’s reading nook. A can of wasp repellent waits on a kitchen counter.
The furniture is exactly the way his parents kept it. The birthday calendar his mom kept on the pantry door still says it's July 2023. His father’s workshop clothes still hold the smells of gas, lawn clippings and sawdust.
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The only valuables missing are the two that cannot be replaced, Linda and Enzo.
For 35 years, the home was a place filled with love, light, laughter and surrounded by natural beauty his parents cultivated.
Even as an adult, DePiero, his wife and daughter spent almost as much time at his parents home as their own. They were over there at least three, four times a week.
The DePieros bought the property with its small ranch-style home in 1988. It sits along an easy to miss unpaved gravel lane that cuts through thick woods. Here the home lots are large with long driveways and neighbors are like family.
His father, a career civil engineer for New Jersey, used drafting software to create a blueprint and assisted contractors with what became a two-story, 2,700-square foot oasis. As a young teenager Zack worked alongside his dad laying tile, spackling holes and hanging drywall.
But without his parents there it's no longer a home, only another empty house, DePiero said.
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The only reason he goes there at all now is to sort and pack more than 40 years of living left behind.
A necessary chore, but one that has revealed a few forgotten treasures that provide cold comfort, Zack DePiero said.
His parents’ wedding album. Boxes of old-school photos taken when his parents were dating. The “Someday, Maybe” wishlist that his mom left underneath a sculpture, a gift from his wife Sabira’s mom.
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Inside his father’s nightstand, the couple found a note that his mother gave him on their 17th wedding anniversary.
“‘Enz, Happy 17th Anniversary! No regrets. I’d do it again... Love always L.’”
The DePieros celebrated their 41st anniversary less than two months before July 15, 2023. Their son sees finding the note as a sign that his parents are still teaching him life lessons.
“I look at this every day and think, ‘No Regrets.’ It’s a reminder, never live life with no regrets.”
As difficult as the last year has been for him, it's Sabira who has struggled the most with his parents' deaths, DePiero said. For her, the pain is as acute and raw as it was in the days immediately after the flood.
“They were a part of our daily lives. Huge role models for me. Every other second we are reminded of them,” she said. “Something you hear. Something you see, something in the refrigerator. These mundane things remind you of the significant loss we went through.”
It's a loss that inspired Sabira to take a pause and reevaluate her life. She quit her media project management job.
The decision was in part out of necessity. Someone had to handle the estate matters, a job made more complicated because the DePieros had no will.
But their deaths also left her emotionally shattered with so many questions. What is most important? What is her purpose on this earth, she said.
“I wanted to take time to reflect on what really matters to me and what my gifts to the world actually are,” she said.
Sabira finds herself remembering the way Linda and Enzo moved through life and how they would react to this situation if they were in her and Zack’s shoes, she said.
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To mark the grim anniversary, the couple plan to attend a memorial service on July 15 at the Washington Crossing church that served as the command center during the event.
That the community continues to recognize and remember the families like theirs who lost loved ones means more than words can explain, the DePieros said.
Their shared experience has bonded the families not only to each other, but the first responders who were there on that day, and the 10 days that followed during the recovery efforts.
Last month, Zack shared wings and beers with Upper Makefield Police Officer Harry Vitello, among the first people at the flood scene, who also served as the liaison between the victim families and first responders.
At their New Hope home, beside family photos and his parents' obituary is a framed reading from St. Paul about how suffering produces perseverance, character and hope.
The gift was presented to them from the grandfather of 9-month-old Conrad and 2-year-old Mattie Sheils, who died with their mother, Katie Seeley, after they were swept away by flood waters. A third child and Seeley’s fiance, Jim Sheils, were rescued.
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Also on the table is a framed letter of condolence from Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Robert Casey Jr. who wrote that the DePiero family was in his thoughts and prayers.
The items serve as reminders that the best way they can honor Enzo and Linda is following in their footsteps and spread love, light and laughter. To be the best parents they can be to their granddaughter.
“I could sit here and stew and be miserable, or try to make her happy and confident and smile,” Zack said. "It’s a natural disposition and a conscious choice; I’m trying to give my daughter the best life that I possibly could, which is what my parents wanted.”
What matters most now is moving forward, keeping things as positive as possible, he said. He works to take the best parts of his parents and childhood and pass them down to a new generation.
“I had the two best parents anyone could ask for — for 40 years,” he said. “I think about that every day.”
Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at Jciavaglia@gannett.com
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