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Janis Lasden: Sister still struggles with grief, fear

By JULIE KIRKWOOD

Staff writer

PEABODY -- Linda LeBlanc didn't lose just a sister on Sept. 11. She lost her best friend.

Janis Lasden and LeBlanc talked on the telephone every day. Lasden was the sister who was always in control and would solve any problem. She was also LeBlanc's confidant, the friend she would call for support when she needed to cry.

Lasden was killed on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center. A year later, LeBlanc hasn't come to terms with her loss.

"She's been gone a year and there's so many things I want to talk to her about," LeBlanc said. "I still can't accept that she won't be back and I can never talk to her again. ... Every day it's still getting harder, because she's been gone longer and longer."

LeBlanc decided last spring to organize a golf tournament on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks to raise money for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a charity her sister had supported.

Now that the event has arrived, LeBlanc is terrified of what happens next. "The only thing that is keeping me going right now is this golf tournament," she said. "When this is over, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what to focus on after this."

LeBlanc said she has been having trouble at work because she's so distracted. Her father died this year, and her two teenage daughters are the only family she has now.

"I'm driving them crazy because I'm just so afraid every time someone goes out the door," she said.

She tried attending a support group for Sept. 11 relatives, but felt it was too focused on spouses. She knows she will have to accept her sister's death, but she doesn't know how.

"I lost the best friend in my life, and I don't know how to deal with it," she said. "This is the first time I've had to deal with any issue by myself. I would just call her and she would help me."

Two of her sister's friends, Steve Poverman and Eileen Dexter, have helped, listening when she needed to talk. And she has found strength in herself every time she did something on her own that her sister would have done, though right now she is overwhelmed by the mistakes she has made along the way.

"With a sister you have a best friend for life," LeBlanc said. "You never have to worry about having somebody to talk to. You can't get any closer than that, and now I don't have that. ...

"I don't know how I'm going to make it through the rest of my life without her to help me."