For the most part, the children don't remember that portion of their lives.

While John seemed to fall apart a little at a time over the course of many years, there was really nothing subtle about Amy's descent into what seems to be a personal hell.

Looking back, he sees traces of the disease even before John was diagnosed, Robert Bishop said. By the time Amy went with Scott to Vancouver, she was in a downward spiral from which she would never recover.

· · · · ·

To understand what the Bishop children have lost, you have to know the Amy who was.

For one thing, she was stunning. And she was very, very witty.

Robert Bishop, by his own admission, can bluster and brag sometimes. When he did, his wife, he said, could "pin me to the wall in no time flat and still make me feel loved."

Most of all, Amy was caring and absolutely dedicated to her husband and babies.

"She was really smart," Rebecca says. "She always helped us with our homework. We'd get home from school and we'd do that first. It was the most important thing."

She also played hard with the kids. On more than one occasion, she kept Rebecca and Craig out of school to go on an educational field trip. They went to the zoo and the planetarium. She helped her children choose topics for reports. That's how Rebecca became something of an expert on polar bears when she was in the second grade.

Amy and Robert's wedding photo, taken May 12, 1982, shows a young, exuberant couple, surrounded by her family. John Askew stands in the back, his face so young and unmarked that he could pass for Amy's not-much-older brother, instead of her father. She looks like a princess. Danny is tiny, about 4 years old and sporting a tuxedo and bow tie. He's leaning casually on his mom's lap. Julie and Jane are flower girls, carrying bright bouquets, while Charlie stands tall and curly haired beside Robert. Scott was serving a mission at the time.

They are the all-American family, obviously delighted by this happy occasion.

Amy had always been a good student. She could get a B without cracking open a book. She was frustrated that her friends sometimes had to study to do that well; she wanted them to have more time to play.

She was also a clothes horse. Her mother says that Amy's room could be a disaster, but her closets were always neatly arranged: pants together, then skirts, then dresses, then shirts. And arranged by color within those categories. She never went anywhere unless she looked just right.