Alysia Basmajian

In 2 Years, a Full Life

Alysia Basmajian and her husband, Anthony, used to marvel to each other that theirs were lives lived in fast forward. They became parents at 21, just before the start of their senior year at the College of William and Mary, when their daughter, Kaela Grayce, was born. They graduated in May 2000, were married in June that year, and found jobs in Manhattan — he on the floor of the stock exchange, she as a staff accountant at Cantor Fitzgerald.

This summer their pace seemed to have slowed. They moved to an apartment in Bayonne, N.J., in August. Mrs. Basmajian began painting again and her favorite subject was her daughter. For Kaela's second birthday, on Sept. 2, the little girl received her first bike; the family spent the day in the park.

At about the time they moved, Mr. Basmajian said, the couple found a list of life's major stresses and realized they had done nearly everything on the list within the previous 18 months. "We'd gotten married, graduated, raised a child, found a job, moved to a new city," he said. "It was stressful, but it was O.K. because we faced it together."

The last item on the list was "the death of someone you love."