9/11 Really Hits Home

It was a beautiful fall day, with the temps in the 70's and still a lot of leaves on the trees and a lot of color left. I went for a bike ride this afternoon and I have a regular route that goes through some cemeteries and trails. I was going through one cemetery and the route I took just happened to take me by a grave site with a car parked, a lady sitting on a stone, and John Denver music playing in the car. Usually when I see someone at a grave I keep going, out of respect for their privacy. Sometimes they look up and I wave and they wave back.
  Today something compelled me to stop. I said hi to the lady, and I said "Is that your husband's grave?" No she said. "Its my son. He was killed on 9/11." My heart just sank. He was on Flight 11 from Boston to LA and that was the first plane to crash into the World Trade Towers. I was sitting on my bike, and I put the bike down and took my helmet off out of respect for her, and went over to her and we introduced ourselves. It turns out that remains were found of her son and they were  buried at the cemetery. He left behind a young wife and baby. He was visiting from California and stayed an extra day just to spend more time with his family and friends.  If he didn't change his flight, he would have left on Sept. 10.
  I told her how sorry I was and that my thoughts were with her and all her family. We hugged each other and we had tears in our eyes. She thanked me for stopping and said I was not bothering her at all. She said she loved to talk about her son. She took a book out of the trunk of her car and it was a life story of her son she had put together. Lots of pictures and stories. Her son loved John Denver and I told her how I had seen him in concert in Danbury, Ct. many years ago and  how great he was.
  Most of us watched  9/11 on tv and saw all the horrible images and read all the stories about all the heroes and victims. And over the years a lot of us have gone to the Memorial at the site in New York. All pretty powerful stuff. But I didn't know anyone that was on any of those flights or was in any of the buildings. The closest I came was we have a  good friend who was an attendant for American Airlines and she flew that Boston to LA route all the time. When I got home from work, that was the first call I made and she answered! She had not been assigned to that flight that day. But she knew everyone on the crew and she carries their names on a card and looks at it every day.
  But talking to this lady and hearing her story and talking about her son really hit home for me. I felt like I had lost a family member. Then she pointed to an urn that was right in front of her son's gravestone. She said that was her grandson. I said, "what happened." He was murdered she said. 18 years old. I didn't ask what happened. I was just too stunned. I can't imagine any parent losing a child and then losing a grandchild too. I didn't ask her about her husband. I hope he is still alive and she is not going home to an empty house. She moved here from another state to be closer to her son's grave.
  We talked about 20 minutes. We mentioned the hundreds of other gravestones in the cemetery and that each one of them had their own stories too. And we talked about how we see signs from our parents who have gone before us. I mentioned one of my sisters and how she took my mother for rides on Cape Cod and looked at the seagulls and fed them. And when my mother died 5 years ago, my sister lived in a cottage overlooking a marsh and there was an old post in the marsh, near the river, and the day after my mother died,  there was a lone seagull sitting on that post. There had never been anything on that post before.  Maybe that was Mom telling my sister that everything was ok.
  Just before I left, I knelt down, kissed my hand and wiped it across his name on the gravestone and blessed myself. I always do that on my parents' grave when I visit them too. She thanked me for doing that and for listening to her. I stood up, gave her a hug and kiss and told her may God bless her and her son and grandson. We both had tears in our eyes as I left and I could hardly see the road as I headed down the trail.
  I hope she is doing ok tonight. I have thought of her and her son and grandson all day. No one should have to carry a burden like that. And isn't it interesting how the lives of total strangers can intersect, if only for a few minutes,  and how they can affect each other. If I had gone a different path today, we never would have met. I know I am better off for having met her today. I hope she feels the same way.

Labor Day and Jobs

In my book, 5 Words and Then Some, I have a section on holidays and I suggest that we try and reflect, at least for a few minutes, what the meaning of those holidays really are. I start with Martin Luther King's birthday and go all the way through to Christmas. Here is what I said in my book about Labor Day:

" These days, I think of all the jobs that are being outsourced to other continents, how medical benefits are being cut, pensions are being eliminated or changed in midstream to the employees' disadvantage, all the layoffs being made to make companies "more profitable," and how the people that are left have to do the work of those who were laid off. I have always believed that you cannot have delighted customers without delighted employees. Take care of your employees, and they will jump through hoops for you. And companies will still make a profit."

Today we have over 20 million workers who are not employed, who are under employed or who have just stopped looking for work. But its not about just any job. How do we create careers and not just jobs. How do we create jobs with a decent salary that you can live on and start a family  and raise a family? And that has decent benefits that both the employee and company contribute to? There was a recent study for the National Employment Law Project that said that 60% of all the jobs created since 2008 have hourly wages between $7.69 and 13.83. That's better than not having a job but is that a career?

Well, I have some ideas on how to create some good  paying jobs that could result in a career. They deal with our infrastructure and energy. And I have even have some ideas on how to pay for them! That column is coming up shortly. Thanking you for your time, this time, until next time,  Regards, FRAN

The Last Dance

This applies mainly to the guys but the sentiments touch everyone. Have you ever danced with your mother? At our oldest daughter's wedding several years ago, as part of the ceremony, the father dances with the bride. That was neat too for it was the first time I had ever danced with her! But while I am dancing with her, I realized I had never danced with my mother and that this would be a great time to do it!
The wedding was in September and it was a couple of days after we had a close call with a hurricane. When my mother was married, it was also in September and it was the day after the great New England hurricane of 1944. So I went up to the DJ and told him about my mother and how she was married right after a hurricane, etc and would he mention that and say that her son would like to dance to her favorite song-Anne Murray's Could I Have This Dance for the Rest of My Life. So the DJ asked for everyone's attention, and told them that the grandmother of the bride was married on a similar day back in 1944. My mother was just sitting at one of the tables and all of a sudden realized the DJ was talking about her. So she looked up and  then the DJ said her son would like to dance with her.  She had a big surprised look on her face!The DJ asked that my mother and I dance for about the first minute and then everyone else join in.
 What an emotional moment that was. Mom and I dancing to that song and the entire wedding celebration came to a stop. The waiters and waitresses, carrying drinks and plates of food, stopped to watch. All the attendees stood still. Many of them had tears in their eyes.  The MC, who had been doing weddings for over 20 years, told me later that was the most emotional moment he had ever seen at a wedding.
  A few years later Mom had to go into a nursing home. She had Alzheimers and the disease had progressed so much that aides and my sister couldn't take care of her at home anymore. The night before Mom went into the nursing home, we had a last dinner at home. Mom loved George's Pizza and chicken tenders so we had that and a glass of wine. After dinner my sister put the Anne Murray CD on and played Could I Have This Dance and I danced with my mother in the kitchen. My sister took a picture of us dancing and I keep it  now on the bookcase right next to my computer table and look at it all the time.
  Mom died of Alzheimers in 2007 and since then I developed a presentation called Alzheimer's Lessons Learned. I go around and give talks to various community groups about the disease and what we went through. I talk about being prepared if your loved one has to go into a nursing home and how emotional it can be, and I pass that picture around of Mom and I dancing in the kitchen that last time. There are not too many dry eyes!
  A couple of weeks ago  my sister on the Cape was driving around doing errands and the Anne Murray song came on the radio. She had to pull off the road and wait for the tears to stop! So guys, if you have never danced with your mother, do it at the next family event or wedding.You may never get the chance again. Mom's birthday is in a couple of days. She would have been 92. I wish she was here so I could have this dance one more time.

Memorial Day

In my book, 5 Words and Then Some (available from Amazon and all fine book stores) I have a section where I talk about holidays and their meaning. I think sometimes we tend not to  think too much about the holiday we are celebrating and why its important. And that is understandable. Everyone is busy working, commuting, raising kids, etc and we look forward to a long, relaxing weekend with family and friends. And we should.

But I hope sometime in the next three days, we can pause for a moment and think of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who went over that hill and never came back. They made the ultimate sacrifice so we could remain free and be able to celebrate this holiday with our friends and families. If we get a chance, lets pause for a moment, and think of all those who went before us while fighting for our way of life. And maybe we can toast them before we sit down to eat,  And if we can't do that, silently give them thanks as we flip the burgers and hot dogs. Many of them never had a chance to get married, see their children and grandchildren born, have a cookout and a few beers.

I was in college during the Vietnam War and then got deferred so I never was in the service. I think about that a lot now. That really wasn't fair.Why should someone in college get deferred but the guy who went to work right after high school gets drafted? I didn't go but probably some poor white guy from Harlan County in Kentucky went in my place. Or maybe it was a minority guy from one of the inner cities. And maybe they didn't come back. Maybe I should have just enlisted.

I think alot about one of my high school classmates, Richard Rodgers.  He was a year behind me. He served one tour of duty in Vietnam, made it through, but volunteered for a second tour so his younger brother didn't have to go. He was killed shortly after. For years I carried his service information from the Viet Nam Memorial in my notebook at work.

So that's who I will be thinking of this weekend . I will be  hoisting a tall glass of Irish Cream in their memory. I hope you do too. Thanking you for your time, this time, until next time, FRAN

A Sentimental Journey

Two weeks ago we took the train from South Station in Boston to Penn Station in New York City for the Easter weekend.  It was the first long train ride for me, other than commuter rides, in decades. I had taken trains from the Back Bay Station and from the Route 128 station before, but never from South Station. There have been a lot of renovations in the South Station area but the main terminal looks like it did decades ago. I couldn't help but think about my father and his brothers and sisters standing there back in the early 1940's as they said goodbye to each other, hugged and kissed, and went off to the war.

When we got to Providence I thought back to the spring of 1964 when we took the bus from Harwich High on the Cape to Providence and then took the train to Washington DC for our senior class trip. That was a great time and several of my classmates have passed away already. And when we were kids, my mother, 2 sisters and I, would take the train from Hyannis to Providence, and then down to New London, Ct. We would then take the ferry out to Fishers Island, where are grandparents lived and where my mother was born. We would spend two weeks there most summers. Just a wonderful time. When the train pulled into New London, I saw the ferry there and off in the distance, looking down the harbor, I could see the tip of Fishers Island.

My mother graduated from high school in Fishers Island back in 1937 and she went to college in Catawba in North Carolina. My grandfather had family in that area. My mother used to take the ferry from Fishers Island to New London, and then take the  train all the way to North Carolina. She only came home for Christmas and the summer. When we pulled into New London I looked out at the platform. I couldn't help but think that Mom stood on that same spot, holding onto probably one suitcase. What was she thinking? She must have been excited about seeing her friends in school again and her relatives in North Carolina, but she wouldn't see her family for several months. And as the train leaves New London, heading south, you can look off to your left and see parts of the Island. Did Mom look at that same spot and think about not seeing it again for months?

And how about when Mom was coming home from college? She must have been getting excited when the train got to New Haven. Not long to go and just before New London you can see Fishers Island off to your right. Almost home! And then Mom took the ferry, and the ferry had to pass my grandparent's house which was close to the water, on the way to the harbor. My grandparents would be standing outside, waiting for the ferry, and then they would wave to each other, and my grandparents would then jump in the car, and drive down to the harbor, only a half mile away. What a welcome that must have been.

And when Mom was going back to college, the whole process was reversed. My grandparents would drive Mom to the ferry, the ferry would leave and go around the point, and my grandparents would be standing in front of the house, waving goodbye to Mom. That must have been an emotional moment. And then Mom gets to New London and is standing on the platform waiting for the train,for the long ride.

I haven't been to Fishers Island in several years. I think I will go back this year, stand on that train platform in New London, take the ferry and drive around the Island and look at those spots where the ferry came in and where my grandparents stood and where the ferry went by with my mother on it.

Its amazing what you can think of on one train ride!