Husband Waits for a Miracle--Or an Answer

WASHINGTON —  Floyd Rasmussen is all but certain that the woman he met at a church dance on New Year’s Eve 1973, the woman who brought him oatmeal with raisins in bed every morning, the woman who read aloud to him and had just cracked the first Harry Potter book, is dead.

But on Thursday morning at 10, when two U.S. Army sergeant majors knocked on Rasmussen’s door in suburban Virginia, all they could officially tell him was that his wife of 26 years was missing in a pile of Pentagon rubble.

He had known that much for 48 hours. He knew that minutes after American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the government fortress where they both worked as civilians--her desk two floors and one corridor from his. He knew that when he evacuated the building and wandered the street for three hours calling her name, pleading until he was hoarse, “I’m here! Come find me!”

He knew that as he sat in his chair in front of the television all that night waiting for her to call, never bothering to change out of his work clothes, much less get into bed. He knew that when he returned to the Pentagon on Wednesday morning, trying to get to her office.

Rasmussen knew, but official information is scant. So this large man of 59 with a fuzzy white beard lingers in a sort of purgatory with dozens of Pentagon families who have lost loved ones in the terrorist destruction now cordoned off as a crime scene, hoping first for a miracle, or, as time passes, an answer.

Rhonda Ridge Rasmussen is “still on duty status, but her location is unknown,” was all the uniformed men could tell him. In most cases, it is all the Department of Defense knows.

She was born in Loma Linda and followed him through 20 years and 12 days of an itinerant Army career, raised four children and earned a master’s degree from Syracuse University in her spare time. He plans to bury her a couple of miles from her birthplace and give a $100,000 endowment in her name to Cal State San Bernardino, where they both attended classes. He has a strand of her hair in case they find her remains.

What is harder for him to figure out is what he will do with himself. They were supposed to move back to the Monterey Bay area next month--they even considered playing hooky Tuesday to get organized and pack. But the work ethic convinced them to drive in together instead.

She called him after the first jet hit the World Trade Center. “Did you hear?” she asked. In retrospect he should have known. He should have gotten them both out of there then, he said as he slumped into a couch, crying, at a center set up to assist Pentagon families.

For now, he has pinned a picture of her to his chest, the badge from her 25-year class reunion. Someone pointed out that it was hanging crooked.

“That’s all right,” he said. “So is my life.”