By Chuck Martin
Enquirer staff writer

Lynn Faulkner's daughters Loren, 22 (left), and Ashley, 15, share emptiness after the death of his wife and their mother on 9-11. The Enquirer /BRANDI STAFFORD

It's a small handwritten note stuck to the refrigerator door - Wendy Faulkner's daily dinner menu. Tuesday's entry: Ham and broccoli quiche. Salad. Biscuits. Heat quiche in microwave while cooking biscuits.

Like most weeks, Wendy had prepared food on Sunday and frozen it for her family to reheat at home in Mason while she was at work in Chicago. But that week, she went to New York - for a business meeting at the World Trade Center.

She died that day in the South Tower with thousands of others, when the hijacked planes struck.

"I'm sure we ate it," says her husband, Lynn, of the meal his wife prepared for Sept. 11, 2001. "I don't know when."

Tonight's dinner is grilled steak with broccoli and corn on the cob. And Lynn - the single father 9-11 left behind - is cooking, slipping around the kitchen floor in socks. Never cooked much before, he says. Wendy did it all - bought groceries, cooked, washed laundry and worked as an insurance executive.

So at age 52, Lynn is now doing it all.

"All I ever wanted to be was a good father," he says.

This Father's Day - like all the rest after his wife's death - will never be the same.

Three together

Square-jawed and barrel-chested, Lynn appears comfortable setting the table with plates and red paper napkins. He calls to his daughters, Loren, 22, and Ashley, 15.

They look much like the pictures of their mother displayed around the house: brown hair and angelic eyes - although Ashley sometimes flashes a mischievous grin Lynn says she inherited from him.

They sit and hold hands while their father says a prayer. And then it's a family dinner much like any other. While Sydney the Yorkshire terrier sleeps on the floor and Emma the parrot squawks, Loren kids Ashley about drinking yucky chocolate soy milk and squirting "fake margarine stuff" on her corn.

Ashley teases her dad about owing her allowance. Their father can hardly contain his pleasure in having his "babies," as he sometimes calls them, sitting at the table together.

Loren has just graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and is about to begin an eight-year graduate program at the University of Cincinnati, simultaneously earning a medical degree and a Ph.D. in chemistry. She considered several programs before deciding on UC, and will probably live at home in Mason at least a year.

"I was glad she came back because I wanted us to have one last year together as a family," says Lynn, who works from home as a financial-services and marketing consultant.

Ashley will graduate Mason High School next spring after only three years of classes.

"They have their mother's intelligence and drive," Lynn says.

Loren quickly corrects him: "Both of your intelligence and drive," she says.

There are resemblances but certainly differences between the sisters. Loren favors science and math, while Ashley loves poetry. And everyone agrees Ashley is the least affectionate Faulkner, although her father took a photo of her hugging President Bush.

It happened May 4 during a campaign stop in Lebanon, when the president heard that Ashley's mother had died in the 9-11 terrorist attack. That night, Lynn e-mailed the photo to 18 people, but the image of the apparently spontaneous embrace soon received countless hits on the Internet.

"I'm usually not a big hugger," Ashley says. "I was surprised, actually, that I didn't mind it."

"The only person Ashley really felt comfortable hugging was Mom," Loren says later. "I'm not sure why."

Left with memories

Dinner soon ends as Lynn has to drive Ashley to a friend's home to work on a project. Loren fills the dishwasher while talking about her father's immense struggle with grief.

"For him, obviously, the biggest piece of the future was her (Wendy)," says Loren. "So I don't think he has much to look forward to."

She knows her father's emotions because they talk often. Even about boys - even when her mother was alive.

"He's a good dad," Loren says. "I would've always told you that. He's been my best friend since I can remember. And he still is."

In a few minutes, Lynn returns to scrub the stove and restack the dishes in the dishwasher. Loren rolls her eyes because her father is "so obsessive."

They laugh when telling stories about Wendy, the serene, saintly woman who would sit on the floor, sip tea and read novels for hours, and could also be driven to near profanity when driving up the long, icy driveway to their former home in Syracuse, N.Y.

Father and daughter exchange memories almost as if they're alone in the kitchen.

An 11-year courtship

Lynn was 19 when he fell in love with Wendy, who was only 16. Even then he saw something special. The daughter of Australian missionaries, Wendy had lived most of her life in the West Indies.

When her family moved to Syracuse, the outstanding student became bored with high school and dropped out at 15 to attend community college.

. Lynn's parents loved Wendy on their first meeting, but Wendy's parents weren't so sure about Lynn, who had long hair, a motorcycle and a reputation.

They dated 11 years before getting married.

In 1996, when Lynn got a new job with an insurance company in Cincinnati, the Faulkners moved from Syracuse to Mason.

Wendy later was named vice president of Aon Corp. a risk-management company headquartered in Chicago.

The Faulkners had planned to move to Chicago, buying property for a country home in Northern Indiana and putting their Mason house on the market. Lynn received an offer for the house that Sept. 12.

Linda Prince, a neighbor and friend, saw the Faulkners often in the days after the family learned of Wendy's death. She saw the swollen, red sores under Lynn's eyes caused by him wiping away endless tears.

"As far as Lynn and Wendy's love for each other, there was nothing like it," Prince says.

"But even though he was devastated, he never lost sight of his girls."

'It was mass murder'

On another day, Lynn is riding high and slow in his silver Hummer through a maze-like Mason subdivision. A bumper sticker on the hulking vehicle reads: 09-11-01: We will never forget.

Lynn doesn't shy from letting anyone know how his wife died - he flies a 9-11 flag in front of his contemporary stucco house and he and his daughters wear 9-11 survivor necklaces and bracelets.

"Those people haven't gone away," he says of the terrorists. "I want people to know it could happen again here, even in a little town like Mason."

He resents it when people describe 9-11 only as a "tragedy" or "disaster."

"It was mass murder," he says.

"It doesn't get any easier," he says of dealing with Wendy's death. "You only remember more things you miss."

As husband and wife and as parents, they were a good team.

"I'm more impulsive and adventurous and would push her out of her comfort zone," he says.

"She was more rational and would keep me from going too far."

They rarely argued, but when they did disagree, Lynn claims he usually won.

"Wendy used to tell the kids: 'Your father has the amazing ability to be right,'" he says.

Lynn has had his share of awkward moments as a single father - when Ashley asked if her shoes went with her outfit, or whether she was wearing too much mascara - and he didn't have a clue.

But the most difficult parenting challenge he has faced without Wendy came in the spring of 2002 when Ashley, then 13, announced she wanted to skip high school to enter a special college program in Virginia for gifted students.

"She had me boxed in," Lynn says. "I just had to say, 'No. You can't leave home.'"

Lynn agreed to let Ashley finish high school in three years - a compromise he believes Wendy would have blessed.

He is not sure why Ashley wanted to leave - perhaps it was a reaction to the death of her mother, or an attempt to compete with her sister.

But Lynn worries most that Ashley, who never openly cried after her mother's death, keeps too much inside.

Facing life alone

Lynn's desire to be a father - the best father - came from watching his dad, Robert, a self-assured 5-foot U.S. Defense Dept. inspector who was "manly," yet not afraid to show his emotions.

"I could see how much he enjoyed our family," Lynn says of his father, who died 10 years ago.

Outwardly a tough guy who flies airplanes and rides a Harley-Davidson, Lynn admits he is sentimental. Somewhere, he has his daughters' baby teeth stored away, complete with the notes left by the Tooth Fairy.

Many people, he says, don't believe his and Wendy's parenting formula was so simple: Respect the children, talk to them, "yes" means "yes," "no" means "no."

Yet he knows Loren eventually will move to Cincinnati to be closer to her classes, and Ashley will go to college next fall.

"I'm absolutely terrified of what I'll do with myself when they leave," he says, wiping at his eyes.

Like many 9-11 stories, Lynn's is filled with terrible ironies - Wendy didn't particularly like New York; she hated tall buildings. And she had just missed the elevator - the last elevator - after the fires fed by jet fuel began that morning.

But there's a sweet irony, too. It is that, at first, before they were married, Wendy didn't want to have children. Lynn had to convince her their kids would be the best and brightest.

He does have this amazing ability to be right.

So now, Lynn has two daughters that remind him - with their wit, intelligence, sometimes just by the way their hair falls on their shoulders - of the wife he loved and lost.

E-mail cmartin@enquirer.com

Wendy Faulkner's good works live on

On Sept. 16, 2001, Lynn Faulkner and his daughters finally gave up hope. They were resolved that Wendy, his wife and their mother, had died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

As they talked at their home in Mason, an e-mail message came into a computer nearby. It was from someone at a Christian mission in the Philippines, expressing sorrow over Wendy's death and regret they would no longer receive donations from her.

For years, Wendy, the daughter of missionaries, had sent boxes of clothing, toys and other donated goods to needy children around the world.

"When we saw that message, that's when we decided the boxes wouldn't stop," Lynn says.

He quickly set up the Wendy Faulkner Memorial Children's Foundation. With the help of his church, Mason United Methodist, he began gathering donations and sending them to missions in the Philippines and Africa. Lynn stores and organizes the donations in a shed at the Warren County Airport near Lebanon and ships them periodically.

To learn more about the Wendy Faulkner Memorial Children's Foundation or to make donations:

www.wendyfoundation.org

wendyfoundation@hotmail.com

4593 White Blossom Blvd., Mason, OH 45040