Customer Reviews

Love You, Mean It: A True Story of Love, Loss and Friendship

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After receiving my copy of Love You, Mean It, I stopped everything else in my life to sit down and read about how September 11, 2001 changed the lives of these 4 special women. I didn't stop reading until the last page was finished..

Well organized and written, I read account after account of how the Widow's Club (WC) coped with the trauma that appears so suddenly after lives are suddenly interrupted.
The women who wrote this book were linked together after the World Trade Center was attacked and after reading their many stories, it was understood by this reader that the love and support that they received from each other was absolutely instrumental in the preliminary stages of emotional and mental repair after the death of a loved one.
Hearing about the love each WC member had for their spouse, the feelings and emotions and heartbreak after "the boys" were killed and the steps taken to repair their lives was incredible.. It made me focus on those friends that I have recently lost and made me understand that my feelings after these losses have been experienced and felt deeply by others.

If you have ever had someone, so special in your life, taken from you, read this book.. If you want to be better prepared on how to deal with the loss of life and all the intrinsic feelings that are a result, it is a must read. LUMI is a guidebook detailing the accounts of four women who have cried, coped with internal and external forces, questioned their own existances and somehow, found the strength to forge ahead and continue on.. the reader will understand through the written words of this book, that you can too.

To quote from the last 2 sentences in the book.. "Make the decision to live. It would be wrong not to."

Thanks Patty, Julia, Ann and Claudia for sharing these very special stories.

Love You, Mean It: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Friendship is the story of four young women. All happily married, all in the prime of their lives, all widowed by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and all unable to find someone who understands exactly what they're going through inside... In spite of the support of family, friends and well wishers what they really needed was kindred spirits, someone who was going through what they were going through and that was what they found in each other, someone who knew.

Together, "The Widows Club" cried, suffered, struggled, and moved forward. And then they decided to let us share it with them...

Not knowing any of this, I bought the book on a whim and when I got it home, I opened it to flip through, just a quick glance, then I'd read it later... I didn't put it down until I had finished it, at around 4 o' clock in the morning. In the hours that had passed I had laughed with this book. I cried with this book. I learned about the women and "the boys". I went along on first dates and to weddings. I felt the fear of seeing those first moments of 9/11 on TV and then the knowing that something terrible had happened... And through it all, I felt extremely lucky to have been allowed to be a part of the journey that Patricia, Julia, Claudia, and Ann shared in their memoir.

This is an amazing book. It's the story of true friendship and is an amazing tribute not just to the beloved husbands who were murdered that day, but to the wonderful women who were left behind.

So much has been written, documented, televised, sung about, and dramatized about 9/11. It is the event that shapes so much of our politics and influences our identity as a nation. For those Americans who didn't know someone who was murdered on 9/11 it is easy to group them all as the victims of 9/11. We forget that September 11, 2001 is not a date that shaped our history but that it is an on going history that continues to be defined. Love You, Mean It is a tribute to four men who were killed at the World Trade Center and is written by their widows.

Brought together by the shocking loss of their husbands Julia Collins, Pattie Carrington, Ann Haynes, and Claudia Gerbasi form a Widow's Club in July of 2002 and soon find their group to be an essential source of resilience, strength, and friendship. It is a book about how women bond and how different people grieve and grow. It is a book about love, "and the best part of love is that it can grow and you can love more than one person.

Love You, Mean It chronicles the relationships of Claudia and Bart, Julia and Tommy, Ann and Ward, and Pattie and Caz. It highlights their romances, ambitions, bereavement, memories, and their on going lives. Their stories are at the same time very sad and extremely up lifting. It is a book about gathering courage and moving forward. It is about friendship and empathy and about being a widow. It is about being in love and meaning it.

Aside from the resounding message of empathy and hope, Love You, Mean It is really well written. It has a lot of names and people to keep straight and does a remarkable job of not losing the reader with these complexities. The chapters run smoothly from each widow's viewpoint and the language is candid and personal without being overly nostalgic or melancholy. The reader comes away with a sense that they know these women, that the widows could be our co-workers, our neighbors, our friends, our sisters, that we are linked by more then September 11th and that this story has not been finished but is ongoing and new.

I would suggest anyone who has lost a spouse read this wonderful book. These beautiful, unselfish women have shared so many of their heartbreaking memories. They are wise beyond their years and brave beyond words. Just to be able to know that the feelings widows have are OK and we are allowed to grieve at our own pace and heal when we are ready is such a comfort. Thank you Patti, Claudia, Julia and Ann for helping anyone who reads your story feel a little less lost in this journey we so unwillingly find ourselves on.

Love You, Mean It is a remarkable book; a loving tribute to four men who died on September 11, 2001 in the World Trade Center, written by their widows in alternating first person and group narrative. More than that, relevant beyond the annual commemoration of 9/11 events, and not limited to those directly affected in that tragedy, Love You, Mean It is four separate, very personal experiences of grief in one amazing story of friendship, strength and survival in the aftermath of unimaginable loss.

I cried from the very first pages, and all the way through -- and I couldn't put the book down. I think most of us can, and always will, remember our personal 9/11 experience. September 11, 2001, when those towers fell and we began to realize what had happened, what was happening, it was a national experience of tragedy: shock, loss, fear, grief, anger. In Love You, Mean It, we experience four even more vivid personal recollections of those moments, when these women lost their husbands, and the aftermath -- days, weeks, months, years now -- on a very personal level.

Jeremy "Caz" Carrington, Tom Collins, Bart Ruggiere, and Ward Haynes, by all accounts, lived live to the fullest. Their widows met almost a year after the tragedy, and discovered friendship, support and consolation they had not been able to find from well-meaning friends and family who suffered with them, but could not truly understand their grief, the way the other widows could. The WC (Widow's Club) began meeting regularly, traveling together each year to recover from the difficult anniversaries and commemoration events.

These are amazing women, heartbreaking stories, yet truly inspiring. This is a book worth reading, celebrating, and sharing, in honor of the 5th anniversary of 9/11, and well beyond.

-- Sherri Caldwell, Humor Columnist & Reviewer at RebelHousewife.com
Co-Author, The Rebel Housewife Rules: To Heck With Domestic Bliss!

Having worked at 7 World Trade and evacuated on 9/11, I was reluctant to read this book when it first came out. However, having now finished the book, I can honestly say that it is an important story that imparts a lesson that is very powerful. The book does not dwell on the tragedy that befell these women, though obviously their losses are part of the story. Rather, it describes the strength that each found in the bond that all four shared, and how that bond helped them to recover. What I felt was an important take away was how the tragedy made life ultimately more precious to the "WC" members. Each was driven to value every day and make the most of it. That may sound trite, but the way the book is written makes it real. Having finished "Love You, Mean It", I am motivated to live a better life.

a personal, gripping and honest portrayal of all of the emotions of grief, loss of the love of your life, and how to somehow find the positive as time goes on through the strength of friendships.

Great book for any man or women who has lost a loved one. Need not be the result of a tragedy.... could even be an illness. Offers hope for renewing Life.

Short and simple: This book reminds you of what's important in life and leaves you feeling like you've known the WC and "The Boys" for a lifetime. It inspires me to want to live how these women live: to the fullest, heart open, and ready for anything. These women are the type of friends we all wish for. Thanks for sharing your lives and stories, they were truly inspiring!

I loved this book! I've been drawn to stories about 9/11 but this one is the best I've read. It made me cry, but it also made me smile. The four girls make it so real. I'm so lucky to not have had anyone I know die in the horrific attack, but it made me feel like I can understand a little better what those involved went through and continue to go through. I've passed it on to my mom and plan to share it with others as well. I highly recommend it!