| For
One Widow, a Somber Acceptance
June
16, 2004
By DAVID W. CHEN
New York Times
ike many who lost loved ones in the collapse of
the World Trade Center, Grissel Rodriguez-Valentin
had her doubts, initially, about the Sept. 11 Victim
Compensation Fund. But her gradual acceptance of
the program was emblematic of how an overwhelming
majority of families, in the painful end, reluctantly
decided that even a program they viewed as flawed
was a better option than an individual lawsuit against
the airlines or the owners of the twin towers.
At
first, Mrs. Valentin found it all too easy to postpone
filing for the fund. The December 2003 deadline
felt so far away. She understood few details of
how the fund would work. And perhaps above all else,
she had a hard enough time emotionally dealing with
the loss of her husband, Benito, who had worked
as a travel consultant for American Express.
"I
just built a big wall around me,'' said Mrs. Valentin,
32. "It still feels like it happened yesterday.
I have found myself signing things with '2001.'
I feel that time has passed, and I haven't done
anything.''
But
shortly after Mrs. Valentin moved to New Jersey
from New York in 2003, she got a call from Tim Rusche,
a lawyer she met immediately after Sept. 11 while
he was volunteering for the Red Cross. He urged
her to apply for the fund, for the sake of her daughters,
Danyelle, now 13; Jailene, 11; and Alyssa, 9.
So
a few days before the deadline, she met Marc S.
Moller, a partner at Kreindler & Kreindler,
whose firm has helped 400 families receive about
$700 million from the fund. Though she did not find
it fair that the fund was required to deduct life
insurance and other benefits, she liked Mr. Moller's
explanation of why the fund made more economic,
practical and emotional sense than litigation. She
also did not mind that the firm charged a 10 percent
commission on all awards, beyond the first $250,000.
Mrs.
Valentin, who received her award notification last
Thursday, declined to specify the amount. She did
say, though, that while the money would help her
children "have a more secure lifestyle,'' she
was still not sure how to feel about it.
"The
fund - to put in a good way, I think it's great
that the government went out of its way and did
things for us," she said. "They could've
called it a day.''
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