We Were There, December 19, 2018

good afternoon everyone welcome welcome to we were there it's very nice having you with us and my name is Judith Pucci I am a tribute museum walking tour guide as are the two gentlemen next to me we attribute what makes us a different is that all of us have had a personal connection to the attacks of September 11th so we are family members first responders some of us were in the towers that morning has obviously survived others of us like me lived in lower Manhattan and some of us even volunteered afterwards during the cleanup period so our stories go beyond the historical events of the day they focused much more on the personal costs of September 11th and today you're going to be hearing from two family members and they are Jim giacconi he was sitting directly next to me and Ray Habib now Ray's wife Barbara worked in Midtown for marché McLennan which is basically a large insurance company risk management services for large businesses and on September 11th though she was at a meeting on the 99th floor of the North Tower Jim's older brother Joe worked in the same building he however worked for Cantor Fitzgerald which is a bond trading firm and that company was also located on the uppermost floors of the North Tower Joe and Barbara did not know one another but they died very near one another on September 11th now you're first going to hear from Ray so I'm just going to quickly give you a little context before he tells you this story it happens really to all of us our normal morning routine is interrupted we miss a train so we wait for the next one what would take an earlier train we're waiting for an elevator it's full so we take the next or we call in sick and we never really stopped to think that these very small decisions or alterations could make the difference between living and dying and yet on that morning that is exactly the kind of thing that happened normally Ray's wife Barbara would have been in midtown Manhattan but her company called a meeting down here on September 11th their corporate headquarters were in the North Tower so that is why that morning instead of being several blocks uptown she was here on the 1994 Thank You Judas for the invite as Judith said you know certain things happen there are a thousand stories of people who were supposed to be here that day but were not because I'm not sure if you are aware but on September 11th there were three things going on in New York City who is the first day of public schools openings so people would drop their children off and then go to work it was an election day not the main one but a primary day so people would go to vote and then go to work and September 11th that year was a Tuesday so Monday Night Football was very popular especially when our own local team in New York Giants were playing the Denver Broncos so how many people stayed up late or went to do some other things and came to work late my wife has due to said the story was different she was not supposed to be here but she was Marsh & McLennan had offices throughout the world but where she worked every day was Midtown so I'm a big believer in faith I don't know why things happen but they do they called for her to be at the meeting on the 99th floor they had a couple floors so miss prompt that she was it was a nine o'clock meeting and I knew that she was going to be at the World Trade Center so she's there at 8:30 I'm in my office since that now and I was in I'm in the real estate business I was and I still AM I'm in my office and you know the reports were not accurate the first report said that a small plane went into the tower I said that's not good I know she's there so I called on her cell phone and all I was able to get was really her voice when the second plane hit we knew it was doing so I tried calling again and at that point there was no communication nothing needless to say life changed that day she never came home and now what if you think that when she left that morning that that be the last time that I would ever see her I'd say you can't be serious but that's what happened and I learned a lesson the hard way and it is a cliche but I will and it's the only cliche I will mention to you if you think that you know the times that we have now what I like to do is treasure each day so you're here I'm assuming most of you are here on a holiday with husbands wives boyfriend's family these are the times that you really should treasure you know we had plans to do what you are doing we wanted to travel too but you know my mother used to always say man proposes and God disposes so we didn't have that opportunity but you know so that's what I had to deal with now I have to tell you you know the things that I had to do I never expected I would the city was unbelievable but I did have to file I had a file for that certificate I had to go down you know submit some DNA evidence so I gave her hairbrush and her toothbrush and I'll never forget even around this time Christmas time they had an event down on the pier on the west side and it was so many different companies there that were just opening their arms to us or whatever we knew we didn't have children but the Disney Corporation was there giving out videos DVDs it was just an amazing opening of the city's heart and for that I will never forget but I'm one of the lucky ones why a few months after everything happened the police department did contact me and said we were able to positively identify some of your wife's for me okay some people you know to this day they never they never have found any of their remains so that's why the the Memorial Plaza is very sacred to a lot a lot of people so anyway I had to go down to the coroner's office and I'll never forget it was a cold Saturday right around February and it was on the lower it was on the east side I go into the office it's a cold bright room and what they did was they came out with a you know like a safety deposit box in it were three fragments of what they said this is what was from your wife one was a piece of her thigh one was a piece of rib what do I do with that well what you try to do is least I try to do is take a positive take a negative and maybe make up as positive something that you can so what I saw from what I saw what I saw was in the box knowing that my wife was on the 99th floor right with that first plane hit I said God please I hope she didn't suffer and that had to be that had to be answered because could not have been and so I'm hoping that that was the case so I'm Roman Catholic what do we do when we lose somebody we normally have a awakened in a funeral what do I do with this well anyway we were friendly with a group of nuns called the daughters of st. Paul and they helped put together this mass card and you know on the back of a mass card with some of her favor her favorite saying and we decided that yes we would have a memorial service so the memorial service was attended by hundreds of people half of them I didn't know who they were but you have to realize at that time again the city just wanted to show their support that anybody who lost someone and so you know I I did give a eulogy now you know a eulogy as soon as you mention you know anything about it some people say well did that give you closure you know our closure is right I mean does it close the book no does it help yes I'm sure listen I'm not the only one Jim and I are not the only ones who have lost anybody but you know it just helped to speak about a little bit and for some reason this event galvanized the world and the City New York became like the nation's neighborhood and so they just wanted to come up and say thank you and I'm sorry and all that and you know you you move on that's all you that's all you can do her company lost almost 300 people can't afford the company right above them Louis six hundred and some-odd people you know that there are some people that will never ever come down to this area again they just can't handle it and you know what I've learned that there is no right or wrong way to handle a loss right we've had losses so for me because we did not have children I kept working I didn't take a day off unless I had to do something because there's nothing worse than sitting around thinking about it and crying in your beer no though I worked and to you know eventually believe it or not we had we were living in Staten Island and we had just moved to a brand new apartment that we had renovated for seven months in Brooklyn where we were both born and raised we moved into the apartment on well a few days before and she made our first meal together September 10 unbelievable so you know as I said there's no right or wrong way to grieve and for those people you know that's fine no I there is some irony in here my wife was a very very private person if she knew I was talking about her you know to a group of people that she doesn't know I might hear about it which I used to hear about it a lot of things all the time anyway but and I just find that you know ironic that you know so I'll take my chances and you know when we meet again but again you know I'm a big believer in fate why did we meet we were married we were debated before we we were married for four why did we meet at that time why was she here at that day I don't know but you know what you move on I changed my job I changed where I live less than a year after I met somebody we're still together so you know you just you just can't figure it out so I just put my hands out and I just go with the flow and that's kind of how I live my life now living in New York and especially in Brooklyn you know it's not easy there's a lot of aggravation but what I've learned is not to sweat the little things and that's where I never let anything penetrate and get inside me I know what's important my friends my family and everybody else so that's the story thank you for listening and I'm sure that this is you know on a holiday we appreciate I'm sure you'll mention it but to take the time to come here and listen to the stories that says a lot about you thank you I know we have learned over the years is that so many of you really I think all of you come here you come for a number of reasons but the one primary one that we have found is that everyone wants to get a sense of greater understanding and a closeness to this experience it changed all of our lives it touched us all deeply so what ray just told you about when he was called they found some of his wife just for a moment I mean imagine that was you and you're given three little pieces of bone it's an extraordinary experience I just found you saying that to them sharing that an extraordinary generous thing to do and people wonder about details like and are always very reluctant to ask understandably you feel as though it's true private a thing to ask about but this is really September 11th what is it like when they say we found your wife or sister your mother and your father what is it that they have found there were only a little over a hundred mostly intact bodies that were recovered after that it came down to body parts and bone fragments it came down to raise experience now I'm going to tell you something extraordinary from an extraordinary day the twin towers were two of the famous buildings out of seven the World Trade Center was seven buildings in total so you have seven buildings and yet half half of everyone who died at the World Trade Center died while the floors where Barbara was a few fours at the very top of the North Tower and the reason is that when the planes entered the buildings they sever access to the elevators and the stairways so people who are above impact cannot get below impact they are trapped and you know in the upper floors that morning of the North Tower 1355 people died because they are trapped now you all know that Barbara was one of them and so was Joe Jim's brother and now he is going to talk to you about Joe Mina ray know each other for over six years we've been to Japan together poke into people that were affected by the triple tragedy in 2011 this was my very first time hearing rain story that's what's unique about the tribute museum the tribute museum is a an unbelievably unique place it's where you could come and listen to a person two persons or it's different from this museum this museum the National Museum it gets the day it gets the history 100% right downstairs they have powerful exhibits and artifacts but what the tribute museum offers is that connection that ability to hear from somebody that was affected directly by September 11 and I encourage you to reach out and maybe visit the tribute and I think you'll be appreciative of the tribute Center is a place also of Education for the public but it was also an educational place for me and I'll tell you two things that I learned from one is that when I got to the tribute museum I was only he was ignorant on my part that I was only thinking of my connection how I was affected and when I got there I was I was overwhelmed at the how deeply and differently people were affected and it made me I think about a person I'm a I'm a much more accepting understanding an empathetic person than I was before I went to the trivia the other is that there was no I discovered there was no blueprint there was no plan there was no formula on how to act after something like that there was no correct way to grieve or mourn or to memorialize or to to move on like Ray was talking about moving on and my story is different from the one I would tell you on a walking tour on are walking towards I would tell you about my recollections of that day and being on the pile afterwards then the surrounding days that are after the story I'm gonna attempt to tell you today is one about my journey about moving on stepping forward and you can also imagine being part of the the tribute museum I frequently find myself in the company of other family members like Rea like myself people who lost a loved one on September 11 2001 see on that morning my big brother Joe Joseph Michael giacconi went to work early he called his wife at 8:30 in the morning to make sure his two young children got on the school bus okay and at 8:46 in the morning when that plane slammed into his building my brother Joe vanished into thin air he disappeared it's within conversations with these other family members that they'll sometimes mention the fact that they had a sign you know like a bird or a butterfly or a rainbow or even a series of events that you know that they would convince their loved one was reaching out to them to let them know that they were in their presence and I would always smile politely nod my head and acknowledgement that they were speaking to me but in my mind honestly I was rolling my eyes something about me is I'm a very pragmatic logical methodical thinker I need proof I'm a big prove it to me guy my father's mantra was believe half of what you see and none of what you hear even in my plumbing profession we think of a problem and a ladder pattern and we don't reach for that next rung unless we have proof of something from the first something else about me is I'm somebody that was haunted by a horrible reoccurring nightmare that began shortly after September 11th and it was exactly the same it would always begin with me standing at the base of a mountain looking up in front of me was a wide swath of a path cut from the bottom to the top the path was all stone and rocked and outcroppings of rocks it was steep it's hard and on both sides was a definitive line of trees like an impenetrable durable forest that made going straight up the only way to go on these outcroppings all over this path were on these were perch these creatures look like dogs almost but they were evil it's just horrible things and me terrified me and at the top of the mountain stood my brother Joe 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 once one of the creatures had me it gave a green light for all the others to come off their perches and set upon there were hundreds of them I would awaken as they were ripping and tearing at me I would sometimes awaken here in a voice or a scream in the distance and as I became more awake I would realize the screams were my own he'd usually be sitting up in bed covered in sweat terrified to the point where I couldn't even formulate a word all I could do was grunt I would go from scared to confused angry and then to sad in 2006 a group called Tuesday's children called me Tuesday children is an organization that was informed in the immediate days after September 11th and their goal back then was to be advocates to be support groups for some of the over 3,000 kids that lost a mom or dad on that day and they wanted to know if I was interested in going on and outward bound Colorado wilderness adventure with other family members and I jumped at the chance I was always a camper always loved being any outdoors but at august's we all made our way to Leadville Colorado leads ville Colorado has the distinction of being the highest incorporated city in the United States almost two miles up into the air above sea level the first two days we used to get acclimated to each other because we were all strangers to each other the camp life for those that never camp before but especially the altitude because our base camp was above 10,000 feet and on the third day we packed up and we began our trek into the deep woods and almost immediately we came upon a river and it was an older gentleman fly-fishing in the river and even though I told him I had no fishing equipment he insisted on giving me a fishing fly and he just said this will work in these water I thanked him very much I tucked it in my pack and we continued our hike and then hike is something I I put in a category I named my life's beautiful moments my life's beautiful moments of defined by the fact that my brain seems to be consciously aware of whatever I'm doing runs or seeing at that moment is in some inexplicable way extra special it's just the realization I have it's as if my brain makes a wrinkle just for that memory and then it will live that memory now I'll never forget it I'll never fade we continued hiking it was sometime after lunch you were on a trail and it was a stream on a left side we went around a bend and we came upon a huge log jam that formed this natural bridge over the stream and we used that bridge to get ourselves and our gear over to the other side we stamp it up the embankment through a small clearing into the woods a short distance and we set up our new base camp that was gonna be our home for the next few days and when the guide told us that we we had some free time before we had to set up for dinner little Jimmy got a long flexible strong stick got my gift of the fishing fly and I got my extra heavy dental floss that I mistakenly bought for this trip and I was gonna go back to the stream and catch some trout I had seen earlier for some fresh dinner when they came out of the woods into that clearing again I was following the same trail we came in on and I was facing that log jam but from this vantage point I could see what was beyond this log jam it was a huge steep mountain it had a wide swath path cuts from the bottom to the top there was a definitive line of trees and a right with definitive line of trees on the left I immediately became frozen because I knew without doubt that this was the mountain in my nightmare this was my brother Joe's mountain I wanted to call out to the others but I had never told anybody but my wife about this nightmare 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 even my closest friends and for different reasons my wife I would see how uncomfortable physically uncomfortable they would become so to save their discomfort I stopped talking about Joe that night after dinner we built the campfire you can imagine in that setting with those people I was brokenhearted people there was a lot of emotional moment there was some anger there was some left but there was a lot of crying when it was my turn to speak and I felt comfortable enough I told the others about my nightmare what I had found that afternoon and that's when we're told by the guide that that mountain was one we were scheduled to climb but that very next morning we put on our day packs we set out at dawn dawn was beautiful crisp clear morning we hiked for hours and hours and we're only about halfway up when I have what I consider to be a complete breakdown for some reason I went from crying to wailing dropping to my knee making guttural grunting sounds I had never made before the other people with me were great they hugged me and they cried with me and together we got to the top of that mountain let me tell you that top of that mountain was absolutely glorious it was spectacular to be up there we discovered that somebody on the top of the mountain had left a pickle jar and people will even 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 swore to him I would never let him be forgotten god knows what I wouldn't do not to be standing up here today something more important than my discomfort I hope happens here today you guys remember my story remember my brother Joseph face you remember rays wise face in a small way you'll remember my brother Joe maybe I'll have made some wrinkles some of your brains for the memory of Joseph Michael giacconi and he will not have vanished into thin air and I'll keep fulfilling my promise some of you might have guessed that after that day on that mountain I never had that night nightmare again because on that mountain that day I found my proof [Applause] everyone I'm going to invite all of you if you have any questions or if you just like to have a continue this conversation the boys will be right outside they exit there so I want to thank all of you you chose to spend some of your time with us today thank you for doing that it is very much appreciated enjoy the holidays Merry Christmas Happy New Year thank you [Applause]

Channel: 9/11 Tribute Museum

Views: 17,979

Rating: 4.9413204 out of 5

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Id: MnZFjKvlU7U

Length: 30min 23sec (1823 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 24 2019