DENISE LENORE BENEDETTO: Sustained
by Faith
The
most important things in Denise Lenore Benedetto's life
were her family and her Roman Catholic faith.
It was that faith that sustained her 10 years ago,
after doctors diagnosed a spinal condition so serious
that she had a 25 percent chance of being paralyzed from
the chest down, said her husband, John Benedetto.
As it happened, she recovered fully after spending six
months in a body cast, and was able to have a second
daughter and eventually to work full time as a secretary
at Aon in the World Trade Center.
Ms. Benedetto, 40, went to Mass every weekend at Saint
Rita's Church, a block away from her house on Staten
Island.
The church is not far from where she grew up, in a
housing project down the street from her husband's
childhood home. They met one evening when they were both
17, when she stood beneath his window and began talking
to him. She went to get some ice cream, and when she came
back it fell off the stick. They both laughed. "It was
love from that moment on," he said.
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