Man who lost wife on 9/11 finds way to fill the void

Sixth in a series.

Rhonda was a big woman, and Floyd liked that. She was 5 feet 9 inches tall, with bold red hair and a plus-sized personality. If there’s a photo out there somewhere in which she’s not smiling, it has never been found.

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The events of September 11, 2001, left a lasting impact on the small town of Shanksville, Pa. In the decade since Flight 93 crashed in a field nearby, the community has worked to construct a memorial that honors the heroes and victims who perished that day, and offers closure and a place of healing to those who visit.

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9/11 memorial photos: Share your photos of services, memorials and symbols that help you honor the 10th anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11.

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• Man who lost wife on 9/11 finds ways to fill the void
• Flight attendant still feels at home up in the sky
• Security guard still on high alert after 9/11

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• PHOTOS: Lives rearranged by 9/11
• Full coverage: Remembering 9/11

Remembering 9/11

A look back at the Sept. 11 attacks and their impact on our lives and future.

Floyd Rasmussen met Rhonda Sue Ridge at a church dance on New Year’s Eve 1973, when she was just 17. He was 31, a Vietnam vet with three kids and an ex-wife. His first marriage was a casualty of war, and he’d spent a few years carousing in Southern California before finding religion. He’d become a Mormon. As he slid across the room, angling for the pretty redhead, he didn’t realize she hadn’t yet graduated from high school. He asked her to dance.

Rhonda thought: Why is it always the old guys?

They married the next year, soon after her 18th birthday. Under church doctrine, they became “sealed,” meaning their bond was not only unbreachable in this life but for all of eternity.

Their connection was more than doctrinal. Floyd and Rhonda had a visceral attraction that would survive all the stresses of age, money worries, child-rearing and no fewer than 27 relocations as they jumped from one military job to another. They raised four kids (Floyd didn’t see much of his three older children). As Mormons, they believed that the man ruled the family, but in practice it was Rhonda who served as CEO of what she called Rasmussen Inc. When they posed for a family photo, she sat front and center, with Floyd behind her and the kids orbiting like planets around a star.

Family took priority for Rhonda, but in 1991, when they were stationed in Germany, she took a leap into the unknown. She enrolled in an MBA program at Syracuse University, traveling to Upstate New York with the two youngest kids and leaving Floyd and the two older boys in Germany. There was much anguish in the Rasmussen household. Floyd told Rhonda that he supported her decision, but that he was uneasy. Floyd needed Rhonda — maybe a bit more than Rhonda needed Floyd. He was trundling into middle age, while she was still in her 30s. He had to wonder: Would she ever come back?

Letters flew to and fro across the Atlantic. Floyd was always better than Rhonda at putting his love into words.

This is what he wrote — it so happens — on Sept. 11, 1991:

“I awoke this morning with an overwhelming sense of your presence near me, it was so strong that I felt that I could reach out and take you in my arms.”

A few days later, he wrote:

“Your absence rents my heart and soul, I am torn asunder. There is a void in the very center of my being, which nothing, other than you and your love, can begin to satisfy.”

She did come back, of course, and kept coming back after other assignments pulled them temporarily apart. When Floyd was in his late 50s, congestive heart disease was diagnosed. When he turned 58, Rhonda gave him a birthday card that said, “Babe, with all your sickness and your faults I still love you! . . . Hopefully we will be able to enjoy these next 58 years to their fullest. Love, Red.”