The Man I Never Met by Adam Schefter with Michael Rosenberg

I want to start this September with a book celebrating some victims of 9/11. As you know it's a theme I don't want to forget and a terrorist attack that touched me profoundly because I had various friends in NYC and one of them worked close to the Twin Towers as a bookkeper. Implied that their life, all our existences after all, changed forever, impacting with that horrible, senseless terrorist attack indirectly as well.

The Man I Never Met by Adam Schefter with Michael Rosenberg is a book, that, you will see, you will appreciate a lot because it speaks to your hearts and will let you discover the story of some employers who lost their lives at the Cantor Fitzgerald.
Only the CEO of the Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnik, that 9/11 for a stroke of luck accompanying his son to school, survived because in another place; all the rest of the Cantor Fitzgerald's employers died, in a way or in another when the Twin Towers were attacked. The Cantor Fitzgerald's offices were located in the North Tower.

Joe Maio was a wonderful man, someone appreciated by everyone and with a great, good and sociable heart. Asking to people close to him, his old friends, his old pals, parents, wife, what everyone share are positive vibes, because Joe was a wonderful man, ambitious, human, plenty of interests, a sport man, someone in love for his friends and life, and later for Sharri, his girlfriend and then wife, and for their new baby Devon.
I wasn't so sure that the perfect man existed, but reading this book, I discovered that maybe Joe was a perfect man, and not because he was a super-hero but simply because he acted with great humanity.
He developed this beautiful character since he was little, and when someone was his friend, not important if rich or poor, beauty or ugly, shy or easy-going, the door of Maio's house open for sure to everyone.

Some of his friends are still shocked for Joe's departure and everyone still speak of him at the present tense because they can't imagine that he is not yet anymore with them. He was special, he was a gift. A gift to the world, a gift to his dear ones.

That 2001 Joe Maio's family made an important change: they decided to move from Manhattan to Long Island. They could have built the house of their dream, because financially the family had a great solidity, but they didn't want to wait two years, so they discovered a beautiful house and they bought that one. They wanted to accelerate their existence now that Devon was with them.

It was wonderful to start to living there although they were still unpacking when Sharri and Devon's life would have known the departure of their beloved husband and father. The Maio's couple was in love and discussions were little, banals and they could be sorted out with good sense and with that love and understanding that characterized the couple.

Also the reporter of NFL, Adam Schefter, lost a friend, Billy, when the Twin Towers collapsed, and it was not simple to moving on.

Years passed by, and at 39 years, Adam was single, without a woman close to him, and uncertainties for the future. If his profession was wonderful, his private life miserable.

He lived the life of a single man, pretty free to do what he wanted to does, going wherever he wanted to goes, dedicating to his work, made with great passion, love and devotion the most of his time.

A friend of him suggested, considering the lack of time for meeting some women with which maybe to start something, some names and phone numbers: "Look: the first one is a widow of 9/11 and she has a son."

Sharri after the horrible departure of her husband at first decided to stay alone. Then, convinced also by the parents of Joe, it's correct to continue to living without to forget people who loved us, tried to start to meeting someone.

Sharri's priority was Devon. She told to all the potential partners about Joe and Devon; she wanted that, a potential partner would have understood that priority; for her a love-story didn't mean just romanticism; she had to find also a proper man in grade to taking care of Devon, with seriety.
Adam and Sharri fell in love; it was moving to read what happened to Joe's dad when Devon called him, letting him know that soon he would have had a new dad. I cried. I can tell you that.

Life at first was not a joke, because Adam's habits were not focused on family but slowly he became a devoted father for Devon and later, for the daughter that he had with Sharri, Dustin.

Devon doesn't ask questions about his father; not a lot; he was a years and something when Joe died and so he doesn't have memories, apart the ones shared by Joe's friends, relatives, parents, uncles, aunts, writes Adam but something let me think that he can goes proud of him.
Sure: with a man, and a family like the one of Maio, they completely adopted Sharri and cuddled her and they're still following her very closely, the perception of Adam this one: that he is currently living the life that, probably would have lived Joe, that man that Adam never met, but that he knows very well because celebrated thanks to his goodness and his being unique. No one wants to let goes Joe and some people report that they have been saved by Joe and his example. Joe has been in grade of helping people also after that he passed away.
I guess that at first Adam felt that he needed to prove of being in grade to be as good as Joe was. The legacy of love, friendship, beauty soul, left by Joe was important and admirable.

Written with great energy, opening the door of the souls of the various witnesses with genuine spirit and without leaving behind anything, this book is one of the most  sincere, fresh accounts (it sounded to re-live that moments) of the first days and weeks after the terrible terrorist attack, but not only: it's the story of survivors,witnesses, their fears, their shocks, their reactions at this tragedy; their devastating pain and solitude shared with million of people in the world; a departure, or more than ones for families, part of a collective tragedy, an endless mourning for many people, all united by the same sufferance.
The book speaks also of hope, of life going one keeping precious the memory of the past and the good example of people that yes, deserve to be celebrated in a book because they were and are unforgettable.

I thank NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for the physical copy of this book.


Anna Maria Polidori