Friday, September 11, 2009

9/11 widow: Do I really want the truth?

See all posts on WTC collapse.

9/11 widow: Do I really want the truth?
My husband jumped from the towers eight years ago. At least, that's what I always thought happened
By Alissa Torres
Salon.com
Sept. 11, 2009

...My husband died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, on his second day of work at the brokerage company Cantor Fitzgerald. I was pregnant with our son. In the days and months that followed, I worked tirelessly to find out the rest of what happened...

The afternoon of the attack, I gathered in a makeshift 9/11 Family Center nearby St. Vincent's Hospital with other shocked families from my husband's work. We shared rumors and truths cobbled together from what we had, which was not much. Before I left that night, I posted a note on the wall: "To give/get information, please call …"

My phone rang all night, every call from a desperate person looking for answers, too.

In those days, the search for answers gave me a sense of purpose, an organizing principle in a life turned chaotic. I have watched this churning need in other trauma victims since then...

By the end of September, Eddie's body did surface, but no, the funeral director told me, I couldn't see it. I had a death certificate, and although I read it again and again, I couldn't understand it. "Multiple blunt trauma to head, torso and extremities," it read.

That meant Eddie jumped, right?...

No comments: