Part of our response to wrong should be justice. It's good that our Navy Seals took down Osama Bin Laden. The other part of our response to wrong is becoming better for the adversity. For that I give you Rudy Abad (based on an article by Jim Gomez of the Associated Press)...

Marie Rose Abad was on the eighty-ninth floor of the first tower struck by an airplane at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The plane hit beneath her. She didn't know it, but she was cut off from any escape.

She called her husband, Rudy, who, after dropping her off at work, was exercising at home. Her call was the first he'd heard of the gruesome attack. He flipped on the TV and stood shocked and breathless.

Marie Rose said she was all right.

Rudy watched the second plane plunge into the second tower. He was in disbelief.

Marie Rose called several more times, her voice getting more and more frantic with each one. Rudy felt scared, startled and helpless.

In her final call to her husband on that horrendously sad day, as she felt the approaching incinerator from below, she said, "It's too hot. This might be the last time I talk to you."

Rudy's heart was aching.

Marie Rose's final words to her husband were these: "Ru, pray, pray." He responded "Ok," as they hung up the phone for the last time.

Moments later he watched in stunned, horrified silence as her building crumbled and collapsed. "Every time I think of that, I feel how all that concrete came down on her," he told Gomez, weeping and shaking his head sadly.

Rudy was born in the Philippines. He used to tell his wife about the beautiful paradise the Philippines was. He hadn't been back there since he left in 1963 so he took her to see for herself in 1989.

They were not prepared for what awaited them.

As they got off the plane they immediately took in an unexpected vista of horrible poverty...of squatters and shanties and filth. This was not the Philippines he remembered and had bragged to Marie Rose about.

When they went for a jog the day after they arrived, they were accosted by dozens of poor children wanting to sell them lottery tickets so they could take a small amount of money home to their impoverished families. Neither Rudy nor Marie Rose had any cash on them, but Marie Rose insisted they go to the bank. She withdrew money, went back and, with all of the children applauding, bought lottery tickets from every one of them.

She later told Rudy, "I don't know when, where and how but someday I'm going to come back and I'm going to do more than this."

After losing his wife on 9/11, Rudy drifted aimlessly looking for meaning and purpose for his life again. For three years he wandered, finding it difficult to focus on anything, including work. And then one day he came across a certain Filipino charitable organization and suddenly remembered Marie Rose's vow.

Rudy donated over $60,000 in his wife's name for the construction of a village for destitute families in Manila's Tondo slum. He not only donated the money, but went to the site, brought wealthy Filipino friends, and helped lay the bricks and paint the houses.

A friend who owns a Starbucks brought tables, chairs and a glass showcase for a village caf�, where young students now hang out and study.

The residents call Marie Rose a hero now. Her picture graces the welcome sign to the village. Everyday residents tenderly wipe the picture with a cloth, keeping it clean and looking new...they refer to her as family.

And they named their new home, Marie Rose Abad Village.

I love you, America...ten years later.