In memory of all who died on September 11th... and all who they left behind
Sep 11 '02 (Updated Feb 15 '04)
The Bottom Line -------
They say your life flashes before you when you die. I'm here to tell you that's true. In my case, it wasn't a pretty picture.
You see, I was a New York City Firefighter. Though people may be holding me up as a hero now, in those few minutes before Tower 2 came down on me, I didn't feel so heroic.
My biggest regret is the way I treated my wife and children in the years before my death. I took Debbie for granted so much. I shouldn't have, because God only brought her to me late in life. We had ten years between us. At times I was selfish, rude, obnoxious, and downright abusive. But she stayed with me.
Oh, there were times... There were some good times between the two of us. But there were also some that were pretty bad. I never respected her the way any human being deserves respect. I allowed my father to treat her pretty shabbily as well.
When my mother was terminal and neither my father nor I could manage to sit with her all the hours of the day, Debbie was there with our son Matthew. She sat there and watched my mother die in front of her, while the two men devoid of emotion let it happen without any consideration for what it would do to her.
It was only because of my mother that I married her in the first place. Sure, she'd had my son, but I didn't have to marry her, right? But since my mother was dying and she liked Debbie, I did it. I think my mother was thinking Debbie would be good for me.
On our wedding night, I left her alone to make peace with my father. She called her mother, crying, from the hotel room we were staying at to come help her out of her wedding dress. I can only imagine now the humiliation she felt at the time. I basically trashed her family as well, while she treated my mother like she was a queen. Anything that went wrong I blamed on her relationship with her family; sometimes saying that she was "too involved" with them.
When Matthew didn't talk like other kids his age, I blamed Debbie for that. I told her it was her fault. Either she had done something wrong during her pregnancy or she was a lousy mother. I was just deflecting the blame from myself and covering up my own guilt in the matter, but it wasn't fair to her. She really believed it too. I wasn't such a nice guy.
I took off when our second child, Christine, was only a month old. I went with my father to Italy and didn't call Debbie once. It was a mind game of sorts, I guess. I thought I was being so smart and that she would be happy to see me when I got home. Instead I was met with a restraining order and divorce papers.
Somehow, I talked her into going for counseling. And we did. I was the one who had to change. But I left her with a half-finished roof on the house. It was something that should have been taken care of. Likewise the problems we had with lead were something I should have followed through on, but never did. I was a lousy husband.
My unit was one of the first ones to arrive on the scene. The second plane had already hit Tower 2. I can't begin to tell you what it looked like. I have never seen any image like that, not even in my worst nightmares. And the people falling... It's something that would have haunted me for the rest of my life had I lived.
We were dispatched to the second tower to clear the elevators. You could hear the groaning and straining of the metal above us, the thumping of bodies as they crashed against the building and plaza next to us.
We had a job to do. We opened up elevator shafts and were rescuing people. The sounds changed - now we could hear the floors crashing down on one another, only we didn't know at the time what it was. Only moments later, my life flashed before my eyes....
And as I've said, it wasn't a pretty sight.
If I had it to do all over again, I would have done so much different. I would have loved her the way she deserved. I would have spent more time with my children, not simply believing I had a lifetime to be their father. Do I think I deserve to be called a hero? No, not at all. My wife deserves all the accolades for having put up with me as long as she did. The true hero is the woman I left behind. She's the one that will raise my kids - and probably forget all of the bad things I did in the process. I'm a better person in death than I ever was in life, thanks to her.
Me, I was just an ordinary guy, doing my job. Just like so many others. We weren't saints; we weren't angels. We were ordinary people. Some of us could be pretty amazing people at times. Some of us weren't that nice all the time. All of us fought with our girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, and parents at times in our lives.
Remember us as human beings - just like all of you.
This is my entry in the 9-11 first responders write-off. The characters created here are fictional and are a compilation of firefighters and police officers I knew in my life. You see, for a time I dated a man who was a New York City transit officer. He was killed 15 years ago in a terrible car accident. I spent a good deal of time around officers before then and have also known my share of firefighters. In our desire to remember, the line between "hero" and "saint" seems to be blurring. I think it's more beneficial to remember that they were human - just like all of us - and to give credit to the people they leave behind, especially the spouses now raising the children as single parents.
© 2002 Patti Aliventi
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Member: Patti Aliventi
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