Having a sparkling clean car just doesn't seem important any more to Dennis Moe.
"There's so many things that mattered before that don't mean a hill of beans now," Moe said before his release from Holy Family Hospital on Friday, 117 days after a man with an assault rifle suddenly changed the way he and his family look at life.All four members of the Moe family were among 25 people shot by ex-airman Dean Mellberg at Fairchild Air Force Base hospital June 20.
Prior to that, "I wouldn't leave the house if I didn't wash the car before we left," said Moe, the last of the wounded to go home. Now, the car's appearance isn't a major concern in the Moe household.
The family's newest goal is healing physical and emotional wounds inflicted by Mellberg.
Physical therapy to strengthen his legs will continue indefinitely for Moe, 41, who had his colon and most of his intestines removed after Mellberg's bullet shattered his hip.
Moe gave up a military career as an Air Force master sergeant because of his injuries and was in intensive care for weeks after the shooting.
"The prognosis for several weeks was that I wasn't going to make it," said Moe. "There was no way."
Wife Marlene, 40, lost a kidney and spent 35 days in the hospital. Daughter Kelly, 13, spent four days in the hospital and 15-year-old Melissa was released after 25 days.
And the entire family is haunted by the loss of Christin McCarron, one of four children they were baby-sitting when Mellberg went on his rampage. She was among four people killed by Mellberg, whose shooting spree ended when he was fatally shot by a military police officer.
"It made them grow up really quick this summer," Marlene Moe said of her daughters' terrible experience.
"You watch the door constantly. You never sit with your back to the door," she said. "I always make sure where the exits are. I'm very suspicious of everyone around me."
The Moes and the four other children were sitting in a hospital waiting room when Mellberg burst in with a MAK-90 assault rifle.
The Moes and three of the four other children were shot as they fled down a hallway to try to escape from the gunman.
Medical workers sent the Moes to three separate hospitals as busy emergency room staffs scrambled to treat the 21 wounded victims.
"A mother's natural instinct is to nurture her family," Marlene Moe said. "When you're in different hospitals, you're not able to do that. That for me was the toughest."
The family has gone through long sessions with counselors to try to work through their feelings of guilt and anger.
But the experience also had its uplifting moments.
Moe wipes tears from his eyes when describing a scene in the intensive care unit at Holy Family Hospital, waking to see his father standing at his bedside. The two hadn't been close for years, but Moe remembers his father's words: "I love you."
Relatives from Eugene, Ore., have stayed to help out at the family's Spokane home since the shooting.
Neighbors, friends and co-workers helped build a wheelchair ramp to their front door, bring food and run errands.
Although she frequently cries in frustration, Marlene Moe said the family is making progress and not asking so many "what if" questions.
"You could `if' the whole deal forever and ever," she said. "You could `why' it forever. But you have to learn to live with it the rest of your life."