The grieving widow and mother of two of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai said she is heartbroken in a one-on-one interview with ABC 7/NewsChannel 8's Courtney Robinson.

"I've just been ripped apart," Kia Scherr said. "My heart is totally ripped open."

Scherr watched like the rest of the world as terrorists stormed hotels, train stations and cafes in Mumbai, killing and wounding hundreds. For 45 hours she didn't know whether her husband, Alan, 58, and daughter, 13-year-old Naomi, were alive.

Alan and Naomi Scherr, in a photo taken in Mumbai.

They had been in the cafe at the Oberoi Hotel. Master Charles Cannon, the head of the Synchronicity Foundation and the leader of the meditative pilgrimage to India, which included Alan and Naomi, was upstairs in his room.

He barricaded himself in the room with two others during the siege.

"Then came the first of the big explosions and grenades and heavy gunfire and more explosions that rocked the building," he recalled.

Smoke filled the hotel room, Canon said; they had to break a window for air.

"All through this were more explosions, more gunfire, more bombs and we continued like that for 45 hours," he said. 

Finally, there was silence and a knock on the door. He was free, but the worst still awaited him as he returned to the cafe. 

"We couldn't believe it was the same place. It was like a war zone. It was just glass and water and bodies and blood," he said. It included the blood of Naomi and Alan, still lying on the floor of the Oberoi Hotel's cafe.

"They were laying under the table with their arms outstretched to each other, their arms overlapping, very peaceful," he said, describing Alan and Naomi as inseparable in life. 

As for Kia, she says she's working to find balance with two pieces of her she has lost.

"That's how I've been thinking of them in my most painful moments, two bright stars and that light will shine forever," she said. "She was having the time of her life. She was having a peak experience. She was just in heaven already."

Master Charles Cannon

Three other members of the Synchronicity pilgrimage were injured in the attack on the cafe. Cannon said a waiter helped them escape, putting them in a taxi after the gunmen left. The wounded will soon return to the U.S.

Both Master Charles Cannon and Kia Scherr say they have already forgiven the terrorists who took the lives of Naomi and Alan.