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Suzanne Geraty: The Kiss Monster

 

Her four nephews christened Suzanne Geraty the Kiss Monster for obvious reasons: when she wasn't chasing them around the park, she was smooching them. Or tickling them. ''She was the best aunt,'' said her sister, Erin Durkin. But Suzanne, 30, had numerous outlets for her playful nature. She always scooped up any extra concert tickets at the Cantor Fitzgerald office, where she worked in system support, and regretted missing Madonna at the Garden. She couldn't hold a tune, but she danced with abandon. She loved dining out and drinking red wine, and she was a devoted shopper for accessories: she filled her closet with shoes, hats, pocketbooks. Her collection of potions and lotions was encyclopedic.

She lived with her mother in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and had done volunteer work there at the Guild for Exceptional Children, a center for retarded adults, since she was 14. One of her nephews told his father, a retired firefighter, exactly how to find Suzanne at the disaster site: he was sure she hadclimbed a tree and was waiting to be rescued.

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times