NASA astronaut's mom mourned

BEIJING, Dec. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Hundreds gathered to remember NASA astronaut Daniel Tani's mother at a suburban Chicago church on Sunday afternoon, according to a report from The Associated Press.

But unfortunately, Daniel Tani, 46, who is on the International Space Station, could not travel back for the service at his mother's church and sent a videotaped message.

Rose Tani, 90, died after her car was hit by a freight train in Lombard on Wednesday.

She was remembered as a woman who braved a U.S. World War II internment camp, raised five children after the death of her husband and worked in a school cafeteria until she was 70.

Daniel's brother Dick and his sister Christine Tani told the reporters about the "special bond" that their brother and mother had.

Daniel, the youngest of five children, was especially close to his mother, he was just 4 when his father died, they said.

"He's holding up," said Christine, who spoke to her brother for an hour earlier in the day via a video-conferencing system NASA hooked up in her home.

She said being so far away is hard for her brother, and the isolation of being in a place where friends and family can't just pick up a phone is frustrating for him.

"He's professional. He said (to NASA) 'Please give me work,'" she said.

"It was hard, but just as in many conversations with her, she always felt she was kind of lucky because they were young and they could start fresh after the war," said Dick while talking about his mother's optimism during World War II.

Her worries, she told her children, were not for her and her young family, but for the older people who were at the camps, who didn't have the time she had to start over.

NASA has said Daniel Tani is believed to be the first American astronaut to lose a close family member while in space.

A private funeral service is planned for when he returns from space early next year.

(Agencies)