I visited Ground Zero with my dad, a 9/11 survivor

He hadn’t been back since the day of the attacks

Fourteen years ago, the lives of Americans were changed forever. Fourteen years ago, the lives of New Yorkers were changed forever. Fourteen years ago, my dad’s life was changed forever.

Growing up on Long Island, I know countless people whose lives were directly affected by the attacks on September 11, 2001. Whether they lost a loved one, had to uproot their family and move to a new home, or escaped the collapsing buildings, it is not out of the ordinary for people I know to have been personally affected by 9/11.

On that fateful day, my dad was working in the South Tower, but thankfully he got out before the wing of the plane entirely destroyed his 84th floor office. While my family and I count ourselves extremely lucky that he made it home safe, my dad’s world was turned upside down on that day. Losing his best man, coworkers, friends, clients, neighbors, and teammates affected him in a huge way — he had to leave his job and move on to an entirely different career.

For years after, understandably, he didn’t go on a plane, didn’t go into the city, and didn’t return to Ground Zero — until this year.

My dad and I had talked about going to the 9/11 Memorial Museum countless times since its opening, but given his demanding schedule as a teacher, tutor, and referee and the fact that I’m only home for a few breaks from school, we kept missing our opportunity. This spring break, we finally got it together and my whole family and a close friend went into the city to visit the memorial pools and the museum.

Visiting the memorial was an emotional but exciting experience. Given how long it took to finish and how long we had waited to finally visit it, our expectations were definitely high, but we were blown away. From the moment we approached the pool representing the North Tower, my dad began pointing out names he recognized.

“Did you know someone who died?” asked a woman standing next to us.

“I knew a lot of them,” my dad replied.

I was awestruck at the amount of people my dad not only recognized, but had personal stories about — and not even all were from the building he worked in. He began calling out people by nickname and referencing memories.

“I used to play basketball with him back in Ozone Park.”

“This guy was one of my clients.”

“This guy over here was worth millions of dollars.”

I saw people uncomfortably look at my dad, mom, brother and me as they heard my dad talking about his late friends. There were easily hundreds of people at the memorial that day, some with stories and connections to the day and some there to learn about what happened and develop a connection to it.

As we approached the North Tower pool and the section with names of people who worked at Euro Brokers — the company my dad worked at — I could see the tears welling up in both my dad’s and my mom’s eyes. Being able to be with my dad for an experience that was emotional and difficult, but clearly very important to him, meant a lot to me. I wouldn’t have wanted to visit the memorial with anyone else.

Prior to visiting, my dad had spoken to one of his friends, a retired fireman and first responder to the attacks who is now a tour guide at the museum. He told us you could easily spend hours in the museum given its size and the amount of things to see. He was not kidding. We were in the museum for over two and a half hours, and that was without viewing any of the films. Not only was the museum informative, but it was moving, complete with artifacts, pieces of the buildings that survived, pictures, videos, and so much more. Some things brought tears to my dad’s eyes, some made him smile, some were too hard to look at.

The room that was clearly the hardest for both of my parents to enter was the “In Memoriam” room. There was a photo of each person who was killed in the attacks, and if you visited a computer you could click on their name and read a little bit about them. A picture of my dad was even featured on the page dedicated to his best man.

In parts of the museum, I would lose my family because we spent different amounts of time at each exhibit. At one point when I thought my parents were right behind me, I turned around to find them standing still, hugging each other really tight. My parents aren’t known to be super mushy and affectionate, but I could tell they were both really affected by the museum — being there had brought them both back to the terror they felt that day. As we were leaving, my dad was insistent on visiting this dive bar we had passed on the walk over to the World Trade Center.

“We used to all come here for a drink after work all the time,” my dad said.

My mom was clearly not pleased to be joining the many 20-somethings hanging out in Raccoon Tavern on that Wednesday evening, but regardless we went, sat on the sticky bar stools, and had a drink just like my dad probably did countless times on his way home from work with his friends, coworkers, clients, and neighbors.

I feel so lucky that my dad is still here, and that I was able to come back with him to the spot his life — and the lives of so many others — changed forever. As hard as it was to see my dad so emotional, I can only hope visiting Ground Zero gave him a small piece of closure.

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SUNY Binghamton