By Matt Wiley
Any early childhood traumatic event that includes the loss of even one loved one can have lasting negative effects on anyone as they grow. In many cases, these events can lead to years of counseling and medication. Some, understandably, are never able to cope and have trouble living normal lives.
However, one Wesley Chapel woman has been spreading the word that it’s possible to move on and lead a positive life, despite devastating personal tragedy, especially after events that shocked the New Tampa community were revisited in recent months.
Seven Oaks resident Jan Soran — who today holds two Master’s degrees and is a human resources director for a national company — self-published her first book, entitled Relentless Reality, in October 2012.
The book details the former Janice Rooney’s experience of walking into her Seminole, FL, home at age 12 and finding her mother Paula lifeless on the kitchen floor, in a pool of her own blood, from a gunshot wound. Jan later found her twin brother Dave the same way in a bathroom. Her older brother Paul, then 14, had shot both in the head with a .38 revolver that belonged to their father Bob and then drove away in the family van, parked it in Seffner and took his own life.
The story of the Rooney murders made headlines on July 10, 1985. Jan had spent that night at a neighbor’s house with a friend. She says that she and her brothers were supposed to leave for camp the next day. She woke up early to go home and pack when she discovered what had happened.
“Then, all hell broke loose,” Soran recalls. “I ran out of the house screaming and started knocking on doors.”
Soran also called her father, an Indian Rocks Beach firefighter, and police were dispatched.
Paul had left a note in the family’s candle shop Candle Accents, where he also worked with his mother. The note was addressed to his father, his sister, a fellow candle shop worker and “everyone.”
“I know sorry isn’t right, but I’m sorry I messed up your lives,” Paul wrote. I didn’t really mess up mine anymore, now that I’m dead. I didn’t want to kill Dave, but he could hear me kill mom, so he had to go.”
Reports from that day describe Paul as a “loner” who had received counseling after what was described as a failed suicide attempt two years earlier, but also as a smart kid who wanted to join the U.S. Air Force. Although Paul was always “quiet,” Soran says that she never got a sense something was wrong with him, or that he was capable of what he did.
Following that tragedy, Soran says that she and her father moved to another home and he remarried six months later. Soran says that her relationship with her father already had not been a good one because he had problems with alcohol and was abusive to her mother and brothers. She says the relationship didn’t improve after the shooting and that the two haven’t spoken in years.
Relentless Reality is the chronicle of Soran’s life since that grisly July day in 1985. Soran says that recent local tragedies, such as the Julie Schenecker (the recently convicted Tampa Palms mother who murdered her two teenage children) case, prompted her to get in touch with the New Tampa Neighborhood News to share her story to help others.
“The hardest part was having to read the manuscript so many times,” Soran explains. “I’ve already lived (this tragedy) once and still relive it every day, but re-reading it was hard. But, this is my life. I’m ok. I’m still here.”
Soran adds that she wrote the book with the mindset that, “bad things happen to you. It’s all a matter of how you choose to move through life.”
Even though anyone who has suffered such a tragedy might, in time, decide to
try to somehow make money on their loss, Soran says, “I’m not in any way trying to make a profit with the book. I just wanted to tell my story and show that we can heal and we can move on. There are ways to move on that don’t make it a continually negative situation.”
For Soran, that way was school. She says that she threw herself into her studies to help deal with the trauma. After graduating from Largo High in 1990, she attended the University of Miami (FL) and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Business in 1994. She went on to earn a Master’s of Public Administration (MPA) degree in 1997 from the University of Akron, OH, and then a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Webster University in St. Petersburg. Now, she’s the human resources director for The Food Group, a New York-based food brand marketing and advertising firm.
“I think I’ve done well in my career,” Soran says. “We all have our low moments in life. I could’ve chosen a totally different road. As a whole, I think I overcame my situation.”
She says that she was shocked by the reaction she received after first publishing the book and still receives random emails from people who have read it.
“So many people have reached out to me saying, ‘I always wondered what happened to you,’” Soran says. “Here I am, still alive 28 years later, a fully-functional individual.”
Soran says that she hopes her book serves as a sort of conversation-starter that will help people explore their feelings about major loss and maybe even prevent tragedies from devastating other families.
“Bad things can happen to good people,” she says. “When they do, you (the people who are left following the tragedy) have to make a decision to consciously move forward. Everybody’s story is relative. Just because you didn’t go through the trauma that I did doesn’t mean that your story isn’t horrible for you. It’s all relative and it’s all in how we choose to deal with it.”
For additional information about Relentless Reality, please email Info@RelentlessReality.com.
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