We all needed someone to listen on 9/11

My office as public relations director of the Licking County Aging Program was in the former Children's Home in east Newark. I was tucked away in a corner cubicle of a shared office. Lorraine Starcke was our "smilemaker" back at that time. She would come in around 9 a.m. and start calling her customers, or friends, as she would refer to them. Her job as smilemaker was to call shut-in seniors and talk about their day, their aches or pains, what they had for breakfast and just make them smile.

Our smilemaker began dialing her customers. These are the people whose phone seldom hears a ring and whose door seldom hears a knock. Lorraine knew she had a job to do on Sept. 12, 2001. She has since passed on, nevertheless I remember her hours of silence on that "day afterwards" as she listened to those who needed a listener. I was comforted by that at that time and I am comforted by that now.