Carl DiFranco

She Yearned to Help Him
Even as a grown man, Carl A. DiFranco's mother came first. They had dates, simple in nature, but the kind most mothers never forget. There were the spontaneous trips to Atlantic City, the surpise trip to Florida, and the quick getaways to Delaware, where Mr. DiFranco, 27, and his mom, Carole, would spend hours in line buying lottery tickets and dreaming of becoming millionaires.

Of course, there were also the run-of-the- mill moments, the days when Mr. DiFranco would return from his job as an accountant with Marsh & McLennan, and go to work all over again, helping his mother around the house, trimming bushes, refinishing floors or moving furniture. "Everytime I came up with a project, he was there for me," Mrs. DiFranco said of her youngest child.

And this year, Mrs. DiFranco had tried to repay some of her son's kindess, to help him, as best she could through what seeemed the most difficult moment of his life. On April 1, his wife, Loren, who had been born with a chronic heart illness, died while waiting for a transplant. "He was trying so hard to be upbeat," she said. "But their one-year anniversary was Oct. 14th. I keep thinking I hear him coming in the door, that I'll have a chance to help him get through it."