Kathleen Visconti and Kate Maleski

00:02 I'm Kathleen Visconti and I'm 57 years old today is September 8th 10th and 10th 2012. Yes, because I messed up. I'm 57 years old today is September 10th 2012 day after my daughter's 17th birthday who was 6 on September 11th. We are at the storycorps booth in New York City real honor to be here. We live in Washington DC now so we came up just for this with me today is my daughter Kate. She's again turned 17 yesterday, and I'm very proud of her.

00:51 Okay, my name is Kate maleski. I'm 17 years old today is September 10th 2012. We're here in New York, and I'm here with my mom.

01:03 So on September 11th to Spring before we had gone out to a small theater to see The Little Prince and the family that I'm going to speak about was there he was his three children and his wife and they were on a family outing and she looks beautiful. She was out of her usual daily attire and into a beautiful spring dress and her hair was up and she was makeup on and I just knew that it she was dressed up for him. This was the first time I had met him. His name is Ron. He looks strong and commanding and he was quiet that he welcomed us to come near

01:46 He was relaxed and the three children were there with him and they were all very involved and their family after the play. I invited them to join us, but they didn't want to because they had other plans and they were just having a great time together and I remember thinking to myself how special and beautiful that family looked on that day.

02:11 On September 7th just before September 11th. My daughter who was going to school with the children in this family. We were at the school and my daughter was there for her orientation and she was with the family would had been friends because you remember what you said to me that day.

02:29 Hyatt why I said that I wanted to go home with that family.

02:33 I said that I was going on with that family which was interesting to me because she was only six but I said, okay and let her go and she went home to play with them and I picked them up after her up afterwards. I remember speaking to Karen and she was telling me about the family and her husband and Ron and that in 14 years did never had a fight and I thought by that's unusual for family, but I thought it was great.

02:59 In September 11th, I was at the school little school in Plainfield New Jersey called Sundance and where the children attended and of course when I found out was going on. We were all very concerned. I remember walking up to the office send my colleague Judy was there and she was listening to the radio and she just grabbed my hand and we stood there and listened.

03:23 It was then of course our job to go out and I was my job to go tell all the teachers what was going on and we were trying to figure out what should be get out of there should be worried about you know, something coming or we just didn't know what to do. But what was going through my head very strongly was Karen call Karen. I wanted to call her cuz to her three children were there and we couldn't get through in any of the phones, but finally I did get through and I told her don't worry. I'll watch the children cuz I knew that her husband worked on Wall Street.

03:57 After school that day, I was just continuing to think these thoughts kept going through my head and it was Karen call Karen and we had eight fathers that could have been affected on that day in our school. And actually four of them did did die on that day, but it was Karen that I kept thinking about so I'm running over my my daughter Katie gone home and she was safe and found the family and in the kitchen that was Karen and his father and they were just trying to watch and they were dignified and they were rational and they were they had everything under control in such a situation.

04:38 So we waited together and then I left hours later. And another thought was in my head all the time to tell her that she can do this which has sort of since become something. I think often when things are difficult to you can do it you can do it.

04:57 Some days later. She called me in at that point. It was obvious to her that her husband was not coming home and I had created an assignment in the school where I had asked the girls to go home on Mother's Day and get information about their mothers. And so Karen asked me. She said you have such a book for fathers, and I said I said no, but let me get back to you and I sat at the computer and I remember feeling almost have presents pushing me to to keep riding.

05:31 I said, okay, I'll do it and I kept I kept creating this and it was just coming out of my fingers and

05:38 It was what it turned out was it's just a 18-page memory Journal that helps a child go through and collect information about their father or their loved one that they've lost.

05:53 I remember going to his memorial some days later and

05:58 They were Birds there and I remember thinking there's always have some connection with death. I've heard this over and over again, but there were certainly Birds there and I remembered what I had known about Ryan what they said at his memorial and he was the first immigrant child. He was the American dream. He came here to our country to conquer the world.

06:21 His father was a tailor and he had made his way all the way up here to be a very successful man, and he was quiet and I remember laughing because he was certainly not quiet in my life nor is he now almost 11 years later. He's very loud presence in my life. I remember when we finally went back to the school. My daughter is just instinctively for young child at that time found herself. Never leaving her friend Elena side. She she was performing an active compassion which I've never witnessed since but they gave me a sense of who my daughter is and she's a beautiful person as as is Elena.

07:13 On September 12th, the children were at school and the girls found and they had this feather on the playground.

07:22 And they hid it under the rocks in the mulch and they didn't know why and they kept bringing feathers to this pile and and hiding them underneath the just said chain link fence and the rocks and I don't know why but again, I thought if you take the e at a feather, you know, maybe there's some evidence of what they were there real Mission there was so they brought in a white feather and they brought in a little multicolor baby feather and some beads and they they put these beads on the feathers and made the crowns and the little family was under there.

07:58 The day after his memorial. Do you remember what happened that day a feather we when you went to find the feather, so we went to find the feather our little family of feathers that we saw every day. And the other that we named the father was gone. It just wasn't there so we kept digging and weed we got really upset and Elena was really exciting. We just couldn't find the feather anyway, so it's I told my mom and she helped me and tell me Members thinking that

08:29 The lines between life and death are vague and I felt like somewhere within those lines. He was watching in the morning. I just got another sense. I should go look for the feather and I took Katie out of the classroom and we went to the playground and she showed me where this little feather family lived and we found the baby feather and we couldn't meet either and I couldn't believe how deeply the feathers were were buried.

09:01 I didn't really know him but he's changed my life forever. He gave me a job. I didn't know I was going to have which was to get his book out and then to help people understand that love never really dies.

09:15 And I won't disappoint him. There was more the worst that anyone can imagine taught me the most that I will ever learn about life digging deep out there that day on the playground between the chain link fence in the board. We found the father feather.

09:34 And we ran through the school to give it back to his child.

09:39 The book that was conceived my father's love. It's a small paperback little booklet that it was put together on a computer before we had that we now have so it was clipart and it was I think I made in a million with a Microsoft product and its

09:59 It's cherished. It's been praised. It's up to date still requested through my website itself tens of thousands of people.

10:10 To cross a bridge. I like to say between loss and love. I don't know why I was chosen for that.

10:19 But after the Memorial I've used them my own mother and father have passed away. I've used them as helping me write their epitaphs immediately afterward after I had written this little this little booklet again that collects memories my child goes to invites things like

10:42 I got it just it's like when you were born what your sign was what your favorite foods were.

10:55 Things like that and then it at the end of the little booklet it goes then it does actually help the child to process the death of talks about when the when the father died and what they can just do now to remember him. So Karen took the little booklet to her group grief group, and they all really liked it. They liked this concept this idea and they will start asking for one. So I was producing them just off my computer and then

11:28 We had a reporter there from The Star-Ledger Bob Braun and he came and he he liked the story. So he put it on October 11th and go as he put it on in The Star-Ledger on the cover about this little booklet and how it was helping so many people more more people are asking for it as a result of that the Geraldine R Dodge Foundation saw it and they applied for and was awarded a grant to put it into print. I made copies called my mother's love and my uncles love in her brothers loving anything that anybody would requested me. I made a copy of the book and we printed tens of thousands of them and then they request really started coming in.

12:18 I have I have a

12:23 So many of these emails thousands of the emails I have kept them in it and boxes and

12:33 I want to read some of them there. They're just beautiful request for the books, which we mailed out sent out an email. And we're able to share with people to this day. So

12:51 That they say we put the website of drowning or God give us another website another little Grant we were able to create a website we call it ww.w. Love lives on. Org and on that website. Any person can go in and

13:09 Download any one of the books for free just by giving us a little information really it's nothing and

13:18 Can you collect memories of their loved one? But the thing is that the whole thing was always created originally just for where Karen but it took on you know, what people say is a life of its own and that it just kept going. It wasn't finished with people kept requesting it. So I kept doing things to get it out. And at this point it has gone literally around the world. We've had requests from you know, all of the of the recent Wars hundreds of bereavement counselors. Author's churches synagogues Professor psychologists have used these books for University of Houston in their teaching.

14:07 Another thing that happened as a result of that is I was given a tremendous honor of being a woman of the year for Somerset County in 2002 and 600 people came in. They they honored the books and I was getting citations from the Senate and Governor another people.

14:29 When I was fulfilling request for the books, it was quite time-consuming and volunteers would come over and you know help me in the initial mailings. For example of Cantor Fitzgerald received quite a few of the books hundreds and hundreds of them. And so there was just a lot of time to facilitate that before we had it available electronically the one night my daughter was sitting there.

14:54 And she was sexy man. What you asked. Yeah. I want to know how I could help. I'm on PC. What are you doing? And how can I help him? I said well Katie, it's just little girls birthday. Why don't you make her birthday card?

15:08 Yeah, girl, so she did and we

15:13 We put the birthday card that she made in with the buck and it it became the new idea and we called it love letters. And so we know that also started just expanding and before I knew it we had many different ideas for that and we went out to local public school in New Jersey and other couple of different schools in New Jersey and asked if people wanted to get involved with big thing about which I consider myself very very fortunate in all of this is that I was given something I could do.

15:49 And I think we all felt so hurt and so confused and lost and to be given a task that we could do that would actually be helpful as was actually a gift to us. And so people wanted to help these teachers wanted to help in the public schools. And so they had all there. They had children go out and they had children their classes rather make cards and said they they made cards and drawings but yet I still have the originals of some of the most beautiful ones that were made and children just seem to know what to write. You know that they seem to have a decent automatic gift for compassion. And so they wrote things. I hadn't some of the cards I say things like, you know, just always remember dad. He was a great guy or here's a drawing of a Gameboy for you, you know, don't worry things will get better. Just very simple messages of her.

16:49 Open loving and we were able to again get many many of these and we just started putting them in with the book. So the children would have some just a little note of cheer and I thought what a great idea anyway, and I think going through 911 and having children my own child in other children who were who were involved they couldn't understand the concept of that someone would do this on purpose. So and I think a lot of us just told her children that it was an accident because we couldn't explain it really couldn't explain it. And if we were going to explain it then we needed to be able to give them a tool with which they could deal with it. And so I think the key to that became a compassionate actin and in these love letters filled that killed that role for the children cuz he said, okay, we'll just happens and now here's what I can do.

17:48 Can you talk a little bit of talk a little bit about how do you feel like towards the world towards I guess service of others. Like how does it make you feel after?

18:09 Do you think these folks knowing that they came from you and then spiration? Well, I feel looking back on the whole experience which by the way again is still going on now cuz it's people are still eleven years later the still requesting the books and you know, and now it's people requesting for divorce and I've lost my parents and in case has lost contact with her own father and you know, so we've used them personally to get through things. I look at it as an honour. I was given an honor to be part of this to have a role to play to offer something to the world. I feel that what a person was when they were he remember when the whole thing happened I was I was angry because I thought well the children are going to lose the future with these these people they loved they don't have to lose the past. So I think that's another part of the messages. We don't have to lose everything.

19:09 When we lose something and I think

19:13 I think like storycorps. I actually also believe very strongly in the power of a story and I think in the the the dimmest most difficult moments of anyone's life, they still have their Story and there's going to be a next chapter. And so if you could just hold on to the final line of a paragraph you just lived and wait till the next chapter comes then then you're going to make it. So I think a life is life itself is

19:45 This is supported by the story. And in that way. I feel very close to storycorps in. This has been a great honor for me and I really appreciate it.

19:57 We have like maybe 2 minutes. You have something you would like to give your daughter with you to your mother.

20:02 Send general. Okay D. I also went through a very serious illness this past summer. We've had some tough times ourselves and

20:14 She is truly an amazing incredible person that I feel very honored to know because she never once felt sorry for herself. She never once thought it's not going to come out. Well, she just said, you know just things happen to people and this is happened to me and we're going to get through it and and we did and she's 100% cured and healthy today and I just think she's an amazing human being with so much. She said in an international school in Washington and speaks Chinese and she's she never ceases to amaze me and make me proud and I love him more than anything in the whole world like to say first of all, how proud I am to know that my mom made this difference in all these people's lives, especially to this family that meant so much to mean and I mean throughout my whole life of

21:09 Really been witness to the fact that my mom. I mean the thing that makes her that shine the most anything that I can tell really comes from the inside of her the fact that she got to help these people really got to see that firsthand with Elena my friend. I am still talk to her and I I know that my mom really helped her in it. I'm just I'm really proud and I'm I really love her and I think she's an amazing woman and I really hope that her story can get out because I think like she was saying I think her story is really worth something and something that can be shared in that that people can learn from in that people will appreciate