Deceased.

(From Hilary Hoffman)
Do you remember Jackie? Jackie was highlighting her hair in 1963.... I think she was 12. I was wearing pancake makeup then... Jackie was the most sophisticated girl, she was beautiful, she knew it all, and she was fun. She made me laugh, I made her laugh and I loved being around her. We met in the summer of 8th grade. We became friends because we were into the Stones, we made our own skateboards and we started wearing Levis. By '65 Jackie was completely blonde or whatever you call that color. It had alot of orange in it. I wanted to hang out with her more often but she made herself scarce on the weekends. She had to clean house on Saturday mornings and spent the remainder of the weekend in South Orange with her childhood friend, Angela. Oddly, Angela was like a mother to her.

From 10th grade on, Jackie and I walked to school together every morning. Sometimes after it snowed, on the way to school, we'd make angels in the snow. We walked, talked, acted cool and smoked my mother's cigarettes all the way. You'd think that with Jackie's father being a musician he'd be really cool too, but he was very strict, very severe. Jackie was the wild one. She feared nothing.

The Della Valles lived in the dark brown house across from the fire station on Hobart Gap Road. Once when I was there around dinner time, Jackie got me to stick my head out her bedroom window just as the six o'clock whistle went off. It was insanely loud. I could see her laughing but I couldn't hear her. She had a great sense of humor. After high school Jackie left home and lived in New York. She said she told her father she was going to the movies and she didn't come back for over a year. She said she kept in touch with her mother during that time but no one else. She came back to Livingston again in the early 70s and we used to go out to discos and party together. We had fun, to put it mildly. She introduced me to several celebrities. Then she started dating a guy and spent most of her time with him. And we lost touch. I moved to California in 1977, but when I was about 40 a friend told me Jackie had died in a hospital in New York. It terrifies me to associate death in a New York hospital with Jackie. If all time is now and it is possible for me to travel back along its line and lessen any loneliness or pain Jackie may have suffered in death by sending my love, good thoughts and green lights to her now, I hereby send them to you, my dear.

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(This is the Star Ledger's account of Luke's life and death.)
By day, Luke A. Dudek was an executive -- the food and beverage controller for Windows On The World atop One World Trade Center. By night, Mr. Dudek worked at his own business, Coqui Design Inc. of Cedar Grove, a well-known flower shop he and his partner, George Cuellar, started 15 years ago. On weekends, the Livingston resident shed the corporate suit and tie for jeans or a jogging suit to deliver flowers for weddings or floral displays. "This was his hobby that he really loved," said Cuellar, Mr. Dudek's partner for 20 years. "He would set up weddings and parties and do everything that you could think of. After work he would stop by the shop and do the books." Cuellar said his partner loved the business so much that after years of renting space, this year they bought their own property for the business. He said Mr. Dudek spent a week of vacation in September completing renovations. His first day back to work in New York was Sept. 11. Mr. Dudek, 50, died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. A Mass of Resurrection was offered Monday in Our Lady of The Lake church in Verona. "He finally had his dream come true, but he never returned to it," Cuellar said. "I owe part of my life to him," Cuellar said. "Part of who I am today is from sharing my life with him." Mr. Dudek was born in New York and grew up in Livingston, where he graduated from Livingston High School in 1968. He graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1973 with a degree in psychology. His major was organizational management and quantitative analysis. He also did post-graduate study in accounting and computer technology. In 1985, Mr. Dudek and Cuellar opened the flower shop. Over the next 15 years, the store's reputation grew and its designs have been featured in bridal magazines and displayed at upscale stores like Bloomingdales, Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Mr. Dudek traveled extensively on business, having gone to the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada and Spain. When he was home, Cuellar said Mr. Dudek found it therapeutic to tinker with cars and was handy around the house. "He could take a car apart and put it back together, "Cuellar said. "There was a Lincoln Continental in the driveway waiting for him to put back together." Mr. Dudek, a connoisseur of fine wine, foods and Cuban cigars, loved his two Dalmations -- Barney and Gypsy, Cuellar said.

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