Gosh,it's been almost a week

I have been busy at work, and mostly trying to catch up on sleep,lol. I hate night shift.

I was also working on my post for the 2,996 tribute.It's up over at the Mail Call blog now.

I was extraordinarily fortunate in that I had sent out numerous emails to email addresses for the family and friends of the name I received to honor, and Jonathan Cappello's girlfriend,Dana, replied to me yesterday.

It was really important to me that someone who actually knew him be given the opportunity to say something about him. What she sent me made me cry and smile at the same time, you'll see what I mean.  I got an email from her today, and she is going to also send me some stories she put together about him. I'll post them underneath the first post. (KNEW there was a reason I did that 'test post' thing,lol.)

It's hard for me to convey, what doing the research on 'Jono' did to me. It struck a chord in me from the beginning, that when he died he was only a year older than Ben. And over and over, reading the postings from all his family and friends on all the many websites to honor his name....I just got a sense that here was a young man who was really special, who touched the hearts and lives of so many, and is still so mourned and missed. Yes, I know he is just one of the far too many lost on that day, and I know there were those in our family who knew Tom Burnett,Jr and peripherally knew some of the others on Flight 93....so there were already some folks we perhaps more 'personally' mourn for on Sept. 11.

But added to the list for me now is also Jono. The email I got today from Dana said in part "this is always such a hard time of year for his family and I".  I know we have all prayed in general for victim's families, and specifically for some.....and now every year I plan on including a family I never met in my prayers as my remembrance. Who still mourn a son,brother, and future husband who in all my research came across as 'larger than life' and someone who just embraced life and lived it to the fullest.

And it meant a great deal to me that it was Dana who did respond to my emails. Everywhere I went in my research...she was there. Five years later, she still does web searches of his name,looking to see if anyone has anything posted about him somewhere that she has missed. You might say that is morbid? but I get the sense that she wants to make sure he is never forgotten, and also that she wants to make sure that he knows he will, as she says "always have a part of her heart."  A love like that made me,again, cry and smile at the same time. Cry because his life was cut short far too soon, and smile because his spirit still lives on.

Who knew? that researching a complete stranger could make you feel so much?

Well, I must go. April is going on a hiking trip with the church youth group, and I am dreadfully far behind on my letter writing for Soldiers Angels!

Heard from one of 'my' troops this morning,lol, the sailor who just got back from his second deployment is home,yay! and gave me a holler on instant messenger. Nice way to start the morning:)