Carl DiFranco Tribute

Since September 11, 2001, when one of the planes that flew into the World Trade Center turned south just east of here over Amsterdam, it is hard not to notice the rattle of the kitchen windows when a jet passes by. I still stop to listen every single time I hear a plane. In the first days after the attacks it was estimated that more than five thousand people died in the assault. As bodies were counted and some of the missing found, authorities finally decided that only 2996 people actually died.

Only.

As if any single one of the souls who were lost that day, heroes and homebodies, doctors and stockbrokers, firemen, policemen, cooks and secretaries, could be encompassed by a word like only.

They were not only.

They were not some incomprehensible count of the dead and missing.

They were our friends and neighbors. People loved them. People wake still wake up today missing them and mourning them and go to bed each night bereft because they are gone.

One of those 2996 friends, neighbors and loved ones was 27 year-old Carl DiFranco.


This is to honor Carl on the fifth anniversary of the nightmare that took him from his loved ones. Raised in Huguenot, NY and a lifelong resident, Carl was assistant vice president of Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., located in the World Trade Center. He graduated from Monsignor Farrell High School and cum laude from St. Johns University. He liked to bowl, play tennis and jog. Married a short time before the attacks he was widowed within months, when heart problems while awaiting a transplant took his longtime sweetheart, Loren Bosso.

Carl must have been a wonderful person. He supported his sister through the birth of his niece, then helped through the difficult weeks that followed. The day he died his mother’s car had a flat tire, so like the decent son he was, he offered her the use of his truck. This made him a little later than usual, but not late enough to be saved. He also took his mother on “dates” and surprise trips. He pitched in willingly to help her with projects around the house and yard. In a New York Times article she said, “I keep thinking I hear him coming in the door, that I'll have a chance to help him get through it," (referring to the loss of his beloved wife.)

From what I read in many tributes from people who knew him, his kindness and caring for his mom reflected the way he always was. Friends remember him as someone who was brave and confident, kind, generous and quick with a joke. There are many poignant references to him by the people who knew him to be found all over the Internet. They make hard reading, but they put a face on what our nation lost that terrible day.

I hope this small tribute will help to remind us of Carl and the many other special people who were taken from us on September 11. I will try to think of him and the good life he lived when I hear planes overhead, instead of reflecting on the terror of those days.

***I would like to thank everyone whose written tributes at the time of the tragedy provided me with a glimpse into Carl’s life. I couldn’t know him, but I admire him just the same.
***The picture appears many places on the Internet, so I don’t know to whom to attribute it.
***I will cross post this to my other blogs in hopes that it will reach just a little further.

Always Remember

I have never forgotten this young man, Carl DiFranco, whom we never knew in person, but who became important to us during Project 2996, when bloggers were asked to write tributes to the victims of the World Trade Center Attack.

Ever since the day of the attack, which came when we were in midst of some of the deepest and most disturbing family turmoil I can remember, trying to move up here, while still running the farm, sorting through the loss of the boss's beloved mother just before, I have found eerie connections to what happened. It may have been half a state away, but it was and remains all too close.

Over the past year or so, our boy has worked construction far under the site. He has spoken to us of the unsettling atmosphere down there, the sense of shared terror and loss far below the ground.

Though we are often encouraged to put the day behind us, to forget, forgive, move along, I will never forget. I still watch the sky. One of the planes involved in the attack detoured south right down the road from here. I will never forget the empty skies, the fear, the flags.

We should always remember.....and just for the record, I am so grateful that today our boy is home and not working under New York City.

Never Forget

Carl DiFranco

Always Remember

The World Trade Center

Little Things

Contrasts

The Little Blue Shirt

I don't suppose this day will ever pass unmarked here. Memories of these terrorist attacks  are etched in acid in all our brains. 

The people we lost. 

Innocence lost. 

So very much lost.

Repairs that are still ongoing and often involve family members.

This is a great nation. I firmly believe that we are among the most generous people in the world, but the World Trade Center attacks shattered more than the foundations of New York City.

They injured us all, in ways that may never be healed.

I was awakened not too long before midnight last night by the ringing of the portable phone, which I cart upstairs whenever my boy is on the road. He and my brother are both working in the City right now, so today has a bunch of extra worries for me....

I clawed up out of restless sleep and fumbled in terror....that is what terrorist attacks do...they leave an aftermath of fear even in those not damaged directly. It was okay....it was Lifeline calling to tell us that an elderly relative had taken a little tumble, but had been checked out by paramedics and was A-Okay and fine and no worries mate.

It took me a long time to go back to sleep.

Stand strong friends and neighbors...we are all there for each other.

Humble

The kid is back in the Big Apple, away at his off-farm job, and so very not here......... although through the wonders of Net and cell phone we keep pretty close all the same.


The other day job training took him to the World Trade Center site. He said that, as he walked down the street by the site, he felt humbled and awed and thought a lot about all the good people who lost their lives there. He wants to take me down to the city so we can look for Carl DiFranco's name on the memorial.


I was humbled that he even reads this blog, and that, while he was doing such exciting new stuff that is going to be so big in his life, he remembered that other young man, so tragically murdered along with thousands of other innocents, by enemies of our nation and our way of life. And touched...I was touched....


I hope I get to make that trip....seems very fitting somehow....

Not Just Another Saturday

When the boss watched the news last night I had to walk away from the television and go upstairs. As is I am sure the case with most of you, my memories of September 11 are still as sharp as if it happened yesterday. I shuddered to be reminded so strongly and needed not to be in that room.

On the other hand we need to remember.

I think we have been encouraged to let the horror slip from our collective consciousness and to move along into our usual round of national guilt for anything and everything that happens anywhere in the world. We were attacked in a cowardly and horrific manner.

It was not our fault.... No matter what the American-haters would have us think. The people who died were just living their lives as best they could not bothering anyone.
We should not forget that.

My beloved brother works long weeks and hours, alone without his family far below the site of the horror, laboring to fix parts of what was broken. I worry about him every day. A few years ago a large number of bloggers joined together to remember each person who died in the assault upon our nation for the 2996 project.

Carl DiFranco, an innocent young man just doing his job, who died that day was my assignment. Here is a link to his story as best as I could find it.







Here at home, it was sirens and Sadie all night again. It is worrisome to hear them screaming up and down the valley especially with 9-11 on my mind. So far no news reports to tell me what was going on with the sirens, but the state of the porch gives me a Sadie suggestion. Gael had a bad night with her old dog vestibular disease; the porch is a mess with a chicken feed bag torn up all over the place and who knows what else. She wouldn't eat when I put out her food.

This is just heart-wrenching. Yesterday she had a great day and even trotted out to meet us when we came in from the barn. With her balance problems trotting is not exactly an every day thing. Now today she is terribly bad off again and can barely walk. Poor old girl. We lavish pets and praise on her and feed her treats and tasty foods but....It is different than with Mike. He lost himself long before he passed away. There was no Mike there, but only a shell of dog. With Gael, the body is weak, but the doggy girl, the Wissa Queen, Beanie dog, Queen Bean is still inside her fragile old body. Mike was my special boy but losing Gael is hurting a lot harder.

The windows were fogged solid this morning. For a minute I was worried that we had had a frost last night. Most of the house plants are still outside and the garden isn't done and I am so not ready for frost....although I suppose that I really should get ready. However, I had forgotten that the boss opened the plenum on the furnace yesterday, allowing a little passive heat to seep upstairs. The house has been damp and dismal and that tiny bit of warmth is welcome. No frost either.

Remember

Carl DiFranco

Never to be Forgotten

When the 2996 Project asked bloggers to remember individuals who died on this day on that awful day 11 years ago, Carl DiFranco was assigned to me. Though we never knew him, our family will never forget him.

Nor will we ever forget that day. 

Now our son works often on repairing and rebuilding the site of that endless nightmare. He says it is still strongly haunted by the horrors that happened there and the good people who paid the price. It gives me pause for thought....often....

Fitting

Weather for our memories of infamy and tragedy seventeen years ago.

Sky tears falling for the victims and for our hearts...those thick grey clouds a mirror of the storm that fell that day.

Remember Carl DiFranco

Remember them all

Little Things

Can mean so much. Last Saturday, Alan took his sister, his fiance, and a friend to NYC for a quick tour of the most popular sites. While they were at the World Trade Center Memorial, they took the time to find this name on the wall....Carl Anthony DiFranco.

Cold chills ran over me when I saw this photo in a text he sent me.

You see, I feel as if we knew this young man, who perished so suddenly and needlessly in that horrific act of terrorism.

Thank you kids, for being so incredibly thoughtful as to interrupt your day in the big city to find and photograph this for me. It meant a lot.