I take the words of Cicero to heart. Today, through September 11, I shall do my small part to honor the lives of those who died twenty years ago on that terrible September Tuesday morning. I do so for reasons that are, in part, selfish. I loathe things I lack the ability to control. I hate problems that I cannot fix. I am impotent when it comes to fixing the problem each of them has had to deal with every day for the past twenty years, which is the hole in their heart left by the loss of a loved one far too soon.
Writing these simple, small remembrances certainly does nothing to fill those holes. It allows me to feel, illusory as it may be, as if I am doing a little something. It might be next to nothing but it feels better than doing nothing.
This past Saturday morning, as Margaret and I were walking around prior to the start of the Sea Girt 5K, I noticed a memorial I had never noticed in the ten years' worth of trips made to Sea Girt for this event, the beauty of which is simply stunning.
Sea Girt September 11 Memorial
Edward A. Brennan, III was a Vice-President at Cantor Fitzgerald. An Elizabeth, New Jersey native who grew up in Sea Girt, "Teddy" was an avid golfer and a devout sports fan, who pored over the sports section of the newspaper every day before he went to work as a Master of the Universe. He was the oldest of Gail and Ed Brennan's four kids - and their only son. He was thirty-seven years young when he was killed on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. He had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald for eleven years at the time of his death and had - on Friday 26, 1993, been at work when the first World Trade Center bombing happened. He ran to safety by running down 105 flights of stairs. In addition to his parents and his three younger siblings, his fiance Meghan Daly survived him.
Charles W. Mathers, 61 years old, was a Managing Director at Marsh McLennan. He was a veteran - having spent six years in the United States Navy - much of it as a submariner. He and his wife, Margaret, to whom he was married for thirty-nine years, raised their three children in Sea Girt. He spent twenty-five years as a member of the Sea Girt Volunteer Fire Department.
William A. "Bill" Mathesen, 40, was a Vice-President at Euro Traders. On September 11, 2001, he was in his office on the 84th floor of Two World Trade Center, talking on the phone with his wife Kathy as they did most mornings and chatting about nothing in particular. It was 8:30. Fifteen minutes later, he called Kathy back. He told her that One World Trade Center had been struck by an airplane and, apparently, out of his window he could see the building on fire and people jumping out of it in desperate. The couple talked until he was too upset to talk any longer. It would be the last conversation they would have. Bill and Kathy Mathesen had two daughters, Emily and Jessica, who were only six and five respectively when their daddy died. Their father's vocation was finance but his passion was music. The day after Emily was born, he wrote "Emily, I Believe in You", which he recorded for her so that she would always have it with her - even if he could not be.
-AK
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