"He's not there," she said, pointing at his grave where the rectangle of grass over his coffin still hasn't blended with its surroundings. "He's with us wherever we go — he's doing something fun."

Her home is about a half mile from the cemetery, where she has plots for herself, Corey and Ashley. Despite the temptation to change her surroundings, to escape some of the cruel "gossip" from the less sensitive, overly presumptive members of her community, Black is staying put with her son and three dogs.

"This is my home," she said.

Nelda Erickson feels she can't stay at her small Helper home anymore. She has no family here. Her house has become an island close to a set of noisy railroad tracks, where cars filled with coal often pass.

She described this past winter as the worst of her life.

"I just can't do it down here by myself anymore," Erickson said recently while cleaning out her house with her son, Cody Olsen, and daughter, Amanda Romero. She's moving to a city about an hour away where she does have family who can help her cope.

"Don did everything," Olsen said.

A lot of those things he did may have seemed little, like shoveling snow or fixing sprinklers, but they added up quickly.

"He took care of me," Erickson added.

Reality still plays tricks on her daughter.

"There's not a day that goes by you don't think about him," Romero said. "All of a sudden it dawns on you, he's not coming home."

For Erickson, this past year has meant getting through a series of firsts without her husband — birthdays, holidays, a family reunion in June. Romero described a recent hot Wednesday in July at her mother's house as one of the hardest, having to sort through Don's things.

"Everything is still the same," Romero said.

Even Don's pillow on the couple's bed was off limits to visiting family members, including grandchildren.

"I wanted his smell to be on the pillow," she said.

Erickson left the house for a while on that recent Wednesday, and Romero stepped in to sort items.

"I didn't want her doing it," Romero said. Cologne, toothbrush, hairbrush — it was all still right where he left it a year ago. "It hurts," Romero added.

Romero and Erickson have visited the sealed mine together. Unless someone can come up with a plan approved by MSHA to go after the remains of the six men, it's where they'll stay.

"I go up there quite a bit," Erickson said. "I just have a comfort feeling up there."

"We know he's there," Romero added. She described a "calming" feeling coming over her and her mother on their first visit.

But Erickson has been much less active since last August. She didn't decorate for Christmas. She didn't go out much.

"I didn't want to do anything," she said.

"She was a hermit," her son noted.