The pain lingers

By Rhonda Simmons

Published: August 2, 2008

When Santana Faulkner looks at her newborn, he reminds her of her first child. Trémir Alexander Norwood has his older sister’s round eyes and pursed lips.

The 1-month-old also has her temperament. “He’s just fatter and lighter,” the 23-year-old mother said. “He resembles his sister a lot.”

Amira Lanae Norwood was a happy and joyful baby, born June 25, 2005, to Santana Faulkner and Dwayne Norwood. She died two years ago today when a fire tore through her family’s home at 129 W. Williams St.

Amira and Trémir were born three years and one week apart, but for Santana it seems like an eternity. On this hot July day at a mountain cemetery in Stanardsville, she stands in the presence of both her children, crying at Amira’s grave site and clutching the little boy who has given her life new meaning.

As a toddler, Amira Norwood was just learning how to walk and climb.

“I remember (lying) on the sofa and she would wake up before me and she would climb over me and get on the floor and get to the table and sweep everything off of the table,” her mother, Santana, recalled as she stared blankly at her daughter’s grave site in Stanardsville. “When I would look at her, she would just look at me and smile.”

That was Amira — a smiling and happy baby, now buried in a family cemetery on a hilltop overlooking Green Mountain Lake.

The cemetery is lined with towering trees and filled with the sounds of barking dogs and chirping birds that constantly resonate in the air at the eastern slopes of the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains.

Flowers, teddy bears and a touching poem adorn Amira’s eternal resting place. A bevy of gray and copper-tinted marble headstones dot the manicured lawn in the spacious burial ground.

“We called her giggle face,” her young mother said during a 98-degree day last month.

Belinda Faulkner, 45, Amira’s maternal grandmother, was teaching her how to use the potty that summer.

“Everyone loved Amira,” she said Tuesday afternoon.

Belinda said Amira loved chocolate soda and beef jerky.

Santana, a Culpeper native who now resides in Charlottesville, says she visits her daughter’s grave every holiday and on her birthday.

“Every time I come here, I cry. I just wish that she was with me instead of right here,” Santana said, standing over her daughter’s tiny grave, tears rolling down her cheeks. “It ain’t easy. When I talk about her, I try to hold back the tears, but it hurts.”

Amira would have turned 3 in June.

‘A second chance’

When Santana found out she was pregnant with her son last year, it was bittersweet.

“I cried,” she said. “He was a big surprise.”

At first, Santana didn’t want another child.

“I felt like if I had another child it was like I was trying to replace her,” she said. “But when I carried him and had him, I realized that this is somebody totally different. … It just made me realize that I’ve gotten a second chance.”

One minute, the young mother proudly shows off her newborn to family and friends, creating a sea of smiling faces and joyful moments. The next, Santana reluctantly talks about that awful day, bringing back unbearable memories that she can never forget.

“When I lost my daughter, I felt ashamed and didn’t want to walk around with my head up. I held it down.

“I don’t really like opening up and talking about it. It’s hard to relive it. It’s bad enough that I have to think about it and not see her. There was nothing I could do.”

Today, the young mother reminisces and shares the good times that she had with Amira.

“She was a happy child who touched a lot of people,” said Santana as she ran her fingers through her short tresses.

“I didn’t realize how attached one of my brother’s friends got to my daughter until the day that I lost her. His first tattoo is of my daughter. And that’s the only tattoo he has.”

Amira’s family finds comfort in adding the permanent ink on their bodies to remind them of that sweet, innocent little girl.

Belinda, who has a large portrait of Amira’s face tattooed over her heart, said her granddaughter will never be forgotten.

“I had to get it — that’s the only way I can cope with her death,” she said. “And this is a way to let her know that I will always love her.”

Santana has a five-inch tattoo of a cross on the right side of her calf with a rose in the center. Amira’s name is written in cursive above it, and the child’s birth date and the date she died also accompany the body art.

“I got it right before her funeral,” she said.

Dwayne Norwood has a large tattoo of his daughter’s name written across the right side of his neck.

A brief, pleasant life
Belinda Faulkner constantly thinks about her first grandchild. “It really gets to me,” she said. “I just want people to know that we miss her and love her with all of our hearts.”

Santana, a 2003 Culpeper County High School graduate who ran track, makes frequent trips to her hometown to visit her mom and numerous family members. However, she avoids traveling anywhere near the former residence where she spent six years of her life.

“It’s hard to go by that house,” she said of the home at the corner of West Williams and Old Rixeyville Road. “I don’t go down that street at all.”

Thanks to the Culpeper community and local organizations designed to assist families during a crisis, the Faulkners were able to put together the pieces of their shattered lives and get through those difficult times.

“The community helped me more than anybody else,” said Santana. “The Red Cross helped a lot also.”

What’s next
The grief-stricken mother says she thinks about Amira all the time.

“I’m taking it day by day,” she said. “I just wonder, how would she be and how would she act with her brother?”

Meanwhile, Santana continues to look for work and wants to move forward with her life.

“I have no other choice,” she said. “I ain’t got no other choice but to let this make me stronger.”

Rhonda Simmons can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 125 or

The day of Amira’s death
Family, rescuers could not battle through smoke, flames
An early morning fire engulfed Santana Faulkner’s two-story, 60-year-old rental house in downtown Culpeper around 7 on Aug. 3, 2006. When fire and rescue crews arrived to the house — at the corner of Old Rixeyville Road and Williams Street — Amira was the only one who didn’t make it out.

Ronnie Settle and Belinda Faulkner, who didn’t have renter’s insurance, tried to alert the handful of sleeping family members that tragic morning.

As the house filled with smoke, neighbors said they tried to save the child before rescue crews arrived.

“I got to the top of the steps and I couldn’t go no further,” said Thomas Fincham, a neighbor who lived on Old Rixeyville Road at the time of the fire. “We just couldn’t get in there.”

A passerby noticed the flames and also ran into the house. “I opened up the window on the first floor and went through the kitchen,” said a man who asked not to be identified. “The smoke was all around us.”

Santana said her mom went back in the house three times to try and save Amira.

Neighbors saw Belinda climb on top of the porch roof — located directly underneath the upstairs windows — in an attempt to retrieve the child from the bedroom.

A police investigation ruled the cause “accidental” due to an electrical problem.

Former Culpeper County building inspector Danny Strickler condemned the house based on the condition of the roof and flooring. Jack Griffin, former fire chief for Culpeper Co. 1, said the home did not have smoke detectors.

Today, the landlord has renovated the house to include new vinyl siding and windows, new appliances, new wiring and smoke detectors.