‘Things Will Never Be Normal Again’

Lisa Frost was memorialized twice on Saturday. First, as a loving daughter, sister and friend. And then as a casualty of war.

Hundreds of family and friends crowded into San Francisco Solano Catholic Church in Rancho Santa Margarita to pay tribute to Frost, a 22-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita native who died when her hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

The mourners listened as Jan Lam talked about their friendship, which began in elementary school and extended through high school and college, where she and Frost were roommates.

“Are words even adequate? I am 22 years old and I’m burying my best friend,” Lam said. “There are not enough words to describe Lisa.”

She said Frost was “a kind and generous lady . . . who wanted to make a difference in this world.

“Lisa was larger than life, with a heart big enough to hold the worries of the world,” Lam said. “Lisa touched more lives in 22 years than most people do in a lifetime.”

She was a woman, Lam said, who overcame a lung ailment that required two surgeries. She graduated from Boston University with two degrees and was at the top of her class.

“She was starting a whole new chapter in her life,” Lam said.

Indeed, Frost had just finished her summer job at a Boston-based food magazine. She was returning home on United Flight 175, looking forward to a few days with her parents before moving to the Bay Area to look for a job.

Frost’s brother, Daniel, fought back tears as he told the gathering that, without his sister, “Things will never be normal again.”

“What didn’t Lisa do for us?” the 18-year-old asked. “She was a shoulder to cry on, a friend to hang out with, an inspiration to all of us. . . . No obstacle was too big for her to overcome.”

The church’s Father Joseph Droessler said that in the wake of such a senseless death, Frost’s compassion, accomplishments and potential offer a lesson to everyone.

Life, he said, should be treasured the way Frost treasured hers.

“Take this valuable lesson of life that Lisa knew so well and make it your own,” Droessler said.

After the Mass, a second service in the church’s courtyard underscored how Frost’s death has resonated beyond her friends and family.

The Saddleback Young Marines, an organization sponsored by the Marine Corps League, performed a flag-folding ceremony usually reserved for military veterans. The league is a veterans’ service organization.

Young Marines’ commanding officer Nick Loskutoff said Tom and Melanie Frost were approached about having the second service. The flag would serve as a symbol of the way their daughter died--a victim in a war with terrorists.

The group slowly carried the flag out horizontally, as if it were atop a casket. A recording of “Taps” was played, and a girl presented the folded flag to a tearful Melanie Frost.

“She was a casualty. And she was an American citizen,” Loskutoff said. “You don’t have to be a soldier to be recognized as a patriot.”