My brother vanished - Jim Giaccone

as you can imagine you frequently find myself in a company of other family members like myself my family members who lost a loved one on September 11 2001 you see on that morning my big brother Joe went to work early he had an office on 103rd floor of the north tower for Cantor Fitzgerald at 8:46 in the morning my brother Joe vanished into thin air it's within conversations with these other family members that they'll sometimes mention the fact that they had a sign you know a sign like a rainbow or a butterfly or a bird or even a series of events that convinced them that they were in the presence of their loved one or watching the workings of their loved one behind the scenes to let them know that they were there and I would always smile politely nod my head and acknowledgement that they were speaking to me but quite honestly in my mind I was rolling my eyes you see I'm a very pragmatic logical methodical thinker I need proof of things a puzzle piece has to fit I'm a big prove it to me guy even in my plumbing profession we think of problems in a ladder pattern and we don't reach for the next rung unless we have an answer or proof of the first something else about me is I'm somebody that was haunted and plagued by a horrible reoccurring nightmare that began shortly after September 11th it was exactly the same we would start with me standing at the base of a mountain looking up in front of me was a wide swath of a path all the way to the top on both sides was a definitive line of trees like an impenetrable forest that made going up the only way to go on this path were these rocks of outcroppings of rocks and on them were these creatures they were horrible vicious evil wolf-like creatures and they scared the hell out of me and at the top of the mountain was my brother Joe and Joe never said a word and without fail somewhere along my climb I would always slip and helplessly slide into the grasp of one of these creatures and once one had me gave a green light for all the other creatures to come off their perches and they would all set upon me at once I would usually awaken as they were ripping and tearing me apart I would sometimes awaken hearing a distant voice or a scream and as I became more awake I would realize they were my own I'd usually be sitting up in bed covered in sweat terrified to the point where I couldn't even formulate a word I would go from scared to confused to angry to said in 2006 I was approached by a group called Tuesday's children Tuesday's children is an organization that was formed in the days after September 11th their original goal was to be advocates for the children who lost a mother or father on September 11th they've evolved and I'm still to this day very active with them they wanted to know if I was interested in going on an outward-bound Colorado adventure with other family members and I remember I didn't hesitate I jumped at the chance and that August we all made our way to Leadville Colorado let's Vil Colorado has the distinction of being the highest incorporated city in the nation almost two miles up into the air first three days we used to get acclimated to each other to camp life and to the altitude because we were above 10,000 feet and on the third day we packed up our belongings and we began our trek into the deep woods and almost immediately we came upon a river and there was an older gentleman fly-fishing and even though I told him I had no fishing gear and he insisted on giving me a fishing fly and he said this will work in these waters and I shrugged my shoulders and I thanked him for his gift and we continued that hike and that hike is something I consider I label one of my life's beautiful moments my life's beautiful moments can be defined by the fact that my brain seems to be consciously aware of whatever I'm whatever I'm seeing at that instant is in some inexplicable way extra-special and I have a realization that I will never forget it it's as if my brain makes a wrinkle just for that memory and it'll never fade it'll never go away and we were hiking it was sometime after lunch we were on a trail and it was a stream on the left side we came upon a huge logjam that formed a natural bridge over the stream and we used that bridge to get ourselves and our gear over to the other side and we went through a small clearing into the woods a short distance and we built our or a new home base that was going to be our leap off point for the next couple days and when we were told that we still had a little bit of free time little Jimmy MacGyver got a long flexible stick got my gift of the fishing fly and I got my 12 years of dental floss because I knew I could do without dental floss for a few days and I was going to go back to that stream and catch some trout that I had seen earlier for some fresh dinner when I came out of the woods into that small clearing again now I was facing that log Jim when we had just come from but from this vantage point I could see what was beyond that log jam it was a huge steep mountain it had a wide swath of a path cut from the bottom all the way to the top there was a definitive line of trees on the right of the fin ative line of trees on the left I immediately became frozen because I knew without doubt that this was the mountain in my dreams this was the mountain in my nightmare this was Joe's mountain I wanted to call out to the others but I had never told anybody about this nightmare except for my wife so I didn't say a word in fact a short time after September 11th I noticed something when I would speak of my brother Joe even to my closest friends and for different reasons even to my wife I would see how uncomfortable they would become so to save their discomfort I stopped speaking about my brother that night after dinner we built a big campfire and then you can imagine in that setting we those people there was a lot of what I call emotional kumbaya moments there was a lot of crying there was some laughter there was some anger when it was my turn to speak and I felt comfortable enough I told the others about my nightmare and what I had found that afternoon and that's when we were told by the guy that that mountain was one we were scheduled to climb so that very next morning we put on a day packs and we set out at dawn and Dawn proved to be a crisp clear beautiful morning and we hiked for hours and we were only about halfway up and I am when I have what I consider to be a complete breakdown for some reason I went from crying - wailing - dropping to my knees and making guttural sounds I had never made before the others with me were great they hugged me they cried with me and together we all got to the top of that mountain and that top of that mountain was absolutely spectacular it was glorious being up on that mountain on the top of that mountain we had discovered that somebody had left a pickle jar up there with folded up notes inside of it I found a pen of paper and I wrote down my thoughts and prayers to my brother Joe one thing I will share with you is that I promised him I would never ever let him be forgotten you know standing up here and reliving the nightmares for you the one I was asleep for and especially the one I was awake for is still it hurts inside but something more than my discomfort I hope happens here today if you all remember my story if you remember my face if you remember my nightmare you in a small way will remember my brother Joe and maybe maybe today I'll make some wrinkles in some of your brains for the memory of Joseph Michael giacconi and he will not have vanished and he will never fade away some of you might have guessed after that day I never had that nightmare ever again because on the mountain that day I found my proof thank you very much

Channel: 9/11 Tribute Museum

Views: 38,033

Rating: 4.914793 out of 5

Keywords: Survivor, family member, September 11th, Tuesday Families, World Trade Center, We Were There, storytelling

Id: ROauY5Hoq0g

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 26 2015