Here’s an excerpt on an interview I did with my mom.
In 2001 my dad worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald in E-Trading. They had just opened a new firm in Houston, Texas, so he moved his family there, and commuted from Texas to New York every week.
On September 11, 2001, my dad was supposed to be working at World Trade I. Instead, he was in Houston because my mom had an appointment to see about trying to have a third child, me, after having surgery. 658 out of 960 Cantor-Fitzgerald workers lost their lives when World Trade I fell that day, making it the firm with the most casualties that day.
Fast forward to 2019, I’m sitting alone face-to-face with my mother on her bed. She has some reality show paused, one of the Real Housewives spin-offs. Our fourteen-year old yorkie, Libby, is laying off to the side of Mom.
I start the voice recording, and in the back of my mind, I feel like I already know what she is going to say. I’ve heard most of the story since birth, mostly from my mom. However, after getting past some of the key details; what was dad’s job, where were you when it happened, what was your initial reaction, etc., I asked,
“How did you tell Hannah and Conor?”
I already sort of knew the answer, so when she replied with, “…I went to see a child psychologist, and she said to explain to Conor and Hannah what happened, just say that some bad men hit Daddy’s work, but Daddy wasn’t there, Daddy’s in Houston, and to offer to let them watch it one time, but then turn everything off, no newspapers. Because they would see it as happening over and over again.
I wasn’t surprised. I then asked her, “Did she ask any questions when you told her?”
For the first time, my mom thought for a second rather than spitting out an answer she seemed to have recited a thousand times.
“She did. She would ask em’ like intermittently throughout the next month or so. We had been to World Trade I to visit her dad a few months before and the man in the deli on floor 105 gave her one of those suckers that’s like a pinwheel sucker, and he told her that he had thirteen kids. And she thought that was so funny, so later that night she came down and asked me, “Did the man with thirteen kids that gave me the sucker die.” And I had to say, “Yes, I’m afraid he did.” And then she asked, your dad’s secretary was nine months pregnant, with a little boy, and she asked me if she died, and if the little boy died, and I had to say yes. So, ya’ know she would just come up and just ask those kinds of questions.”
I was shocked. She had never mentioned that before. I prior knew about my dad’s pregnant secretary that had died, but mom had never been that open about something so raw. What surprised me even more, is that my dad had mentioned that same man weeks before when we were talking. We were driving to my grandparents’ house in Houston, the radio was softly playing, and I had briefly mentioned something about how it must have been awful to lose so many friends. He turned to me and said,
“I lost a lot of friends, yes, but it’s not even just that. It would be the people you saw at the deli, like the man serving you. It’s the people you see just for a fleeting moment that seem to disappear. “
Hearing my mom mention the man with thirteen kids brought me back to that same conversation. I however did not interrupt, and just let her continue telling the rest of the day, the man with the thirteen kids still on my mind.
this hurt my soul. thx