N002184
Monday, January 21, 2002 5:00 PM
comments on the comp plan
my name is and my son was killed in the north tower. The federal government should help the parents and the brothers and sisters of the victims. The rest of our life's will be filled with pain. We will forgive grief our son. brother will always be with out his brother. When and I die he will be alone. Try walking in our shoes and then you will get the full picture. You should walk in the shoes of everyone connected with 9/11 to understand how we all feel. I would like you to read the letter I sent today to our President.
Individual Comment
Morganville nj
Attachment 1
I want to address the fact that the government has forgotten about the parents and brothers and sisters of the victims of 9/11. I want you to understand our lives since 9/11.What is our life as parents like? In order to tell you that I have to give you some background. On 9/11 my wife ran out of when she learned that there was a fire in one of the twin towers. She did not know that a plane flew into the building yet. When she got outside she could see that the top of the building on fire. Our son worked in on the floor of 1 WTC. fell to the ground crying. She might not have made it through that day except for a man that moved her away from the burning building. The man would helped my wife was who might have just saved my wife’s life. My wife watched her son being burnt alive while I watched it on the television. Not many parents can say that they saw their son killed over and over. Thank G-d for that. You do not have any idea what that was like and still is to this day. Pictures of the World Trade Center will be in newspapers and on TV for a long time. 9/11 has become a word. That day is burned into our brain as well as our heart. We were forced to watch on television the repeated shots of the plane going into the Trade Center while we waited for news that never came. Our son, had disappeared.
Our son was married for 5 years. He had a two-year-old son. On September 15, his wife gave birth to twin girls. never saw his two babies. His daughters will never know what a great father would have been to them. There was no one better than him. He was looking forward to the birth of his new daughter. We joked about how loud he would be when gave birth. He said they would hear him in California. I told him that he was wrong and that they would hear him around the world
As parents but not next of kin we are the forgotten people. The American people have poured their hearts out to the wife’s and husbands of people who were killed that day. They also poured their hearts out to the children left behind. I am very glad that they are being taken care of my son’s family.
Now let me tell you about the forgotten people. These are the parents of those killed that day. They are also the brothers and sisters of those killed that day. When flags were given to next of kin they were excluded. A flag would have cost $11.50 cents and would have helped us feel like the country knows about our lose and how great our lose is. We are not even worth that. When urns were given to next of kin they were excluded. In short we are not part of the process when it comes to our children. Is this the message that you want to give to us? How can you not recognize the fact that we have lost someone more precious to us than life itself? Life is not suppose be like this. We are not supposed to bury our children. In this case we do not even get to bury our son. I have heard two fathers say" Thank g-d that they found my son’s body’. How sick is that but you know what, they are right. They have some sort of closure. But still their lose is great.
We are going to grief counselors and to support groups to help us to deal with our lives. We are told that losing a child is the greatest loss that there can be yet our government does not care. You do not know who we are. You have not made an attempt to find us and help us. No one is government has lifted a finger to try to find and help us. This is not a contest to see who can hurt the most. During the past 4 months we have come in contact with a number of parents that have had loses like ours. We have seen one woman who is unable to work because she sells a product and needs to always be perky to make a sale. Who wants to buy from her when see is crying all the time? She has not worked in 4 months .We have seen one man who lost his job because of the effects of 9/11 as well as his son. His wife and daughter are afraid that he might do harm to himself. We have seen the relationship between in laws dissolve and erode. While this is a small sampling of parents I think that there are thousands of parents that need help to make it through life. We are trying to deal with our pain. As parents we will need help for the rest of our life’s to get through this. Our loss will always be with us. The government has turned their backs on us. We need you to acknowledge our loss. We feel that no one cares about us. This makes our lose much worse. We hear about the fireman. We hear about the policemen. We hear about the wife’s. We hear about the children. Sometimes we even hear about the victims. We never hear about the parents. We never hear about the brothers and sisters. Is their lose any less of a lose than a wife’s loss. Who is going to help us deal with our pain?
We did not just raise and then forget about him. Yes he did marry and had started a family but is was still our son for life, how ever short it was. A parent or a brother or sister will always be the parents and the brother or sister. A wife can be a widow or a wife again.
We have seen over the last few months the effect of losing a child has on parents. We cannot make it through the day without crying. We cannot stand in long lines without having an anxiety attack. We carry pills to help us if need them. We have many triggers that cause us to cry. If we see a father with a young child we cry. If it is our birthdays we cry because our sons or daughters will not be calling. Tomorrow is our anniversary and will not be calling. He will not be coming to take us out to celebrate. This has made us cry over this weekend. In short almost anything can cause us to cry. When a parent loses a child a part of the parent dies. It feels like a hole opened in our body and we cannot seem to seal that hole.
Please consider how we as parents feel and acknowledge our great lose. If this had happened to a child of yours you would feel the same thing that we feel every minute of every day. You would need the same help that we will need for the rest of our life’s or what is left of them.
Last week we went to a meeting set up by a group that works with self-support groups around the country. They had people from the Pam Am flight and people from the Lebanon attack and others. The thing that stuck me the most was how hard it was for the father who lost his son over 18 years ago in Lebanon to speak to us. He tried to hold back the tears but could not do it. We will never stop crying for our children lost on 9/11. How can we go on? The answer is that we have to. We have to go on for our other children and our wife’s or husbands no matter how we are suffering.
Let me tell you what happens in a normal day to us. You get up in the morning and take a shower and cry while you do so. No one can hear you so it is a good place to cry. You have breakfast and maybe you cry. Then you get in your car and drive to work. Half of the trip you cry and try to see the road at the same time. At work you cry during the day. You go to the bank to make a deposit. You start shaking from being in line. The bank employees know what happens to me. They take the deposit and I go sit down while they get me some water. I take a pill and after about 15 minutes I can leave the bank. This condition was not there before death. You go home after work and you cry when you see a beautiful sunset and you cry because your son is part of that sunset. You have dinner and then a few more cries and it is time to go to sleep. You think of your son as you close your eyes. You hope that you will dream about him tonight. This is our life. Talk to other parents and you will find the same thing happening to them. There is nothing that can bring back our son. The government does not know who we are. There is no list of parents that are not next of kin. There is no list of the brothers or sisters. We hope that one day the government will find a way to say that they are sorry for our loss. We hope that someday you walk in our shoes for a few moments to see what life is like for the parents. Only then could you understand the life that is now ours. A few weeks ago a person kill herself because her husband died on 9/11. Each person in our support group understood why she did what she did. Life is so hard for each of us every minute of everyday.
We think about 9/11 everyday. Our sons and daughters went to work and never came home. They disappeared. The building they worked in disappeared. We ask ourselves, How can that be?
We ask you to help us coupe with our pain. We do not know what the answer is but we do know the great suffering that each parent goes through ever moment of their life’s. Now and forever.