{"id":37026,"date":"2019-09-11T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T18:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=37026"},"modified":"2019-09-11T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T18:28:11","slug":"remembering-the-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=37026","title":{"rendered":"Remembering The Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday The New York Post<\/a> posted an article telling the stories of some of the children who lost their parents in the September 11 terror attacks.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

For the widows of 9\/11, some of whom were profiled<\/a> by The Post on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, some had no choice but to put their grief aside in order to raise their families. As for the babies they were expecting and the newborns they cradled in their arms: Now turning 18, they\u2019ve grown up dreaming of a parent they\u2019ve only heard about.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe he\u2019s up there, helping me with my success,\u201d says Allison Lee, born two days after her father, Dan, was killed in the terrorist attacks. Next month, she\u2019ll move to Los Angeles, where her father grew up, to begin a dance program.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Allison says she can picture him giving her a thumbs-up, just as he\u2019d done in the photos she\u2019s seen. \u201cI know he\u2019d be telling me, \u2018You\u2019ve got this. Don\u2019t give up on your dream.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article continues:<\/p>\n

NYPD detective Joseph Vigiano had just three months with his infant son, John, before he ran into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, trying to rescue the people trapped inside. Their father-son time was short, but precious.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI have a picture I took of John sleeping on Joe [on] the couch,\u201d says his wife, Kathy, who met Joseph when they were police officers stationed in Brooklyn\u2019s 75th Precinct and is now retired from the force. \u201cI guess that\u2019s the best bonding you could do with an infant.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

With his older boys, Joseph Jr. and Jimmy, Joseph was a hands-on dad, says Kathy, now 54 and living on Long Island. He made his sons mini NYPD uniforms, cutting up one of his leather belts to fashion holsters that held flashlights and other tools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…Although Kathy\u2019s youngest child grew up without knowing his father, he says he\u2019s felt his presence all his life. \u201cHe\u2019s looking out over me,\u201d John, now 18, says. When he learned his dad started a lacrosse league with the NYPD, he took up the sport, playing it throughout his time at St. Anthony\u2019s High School. Now, a Marine Transportation major at SUNY Maritime in the Bronx, John says he\u2019s doing everything he can to make his dad proud.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That includes his aspirations for service: His late uncle, grandfather and great-grandfather were all FDNY firefighters. When John finishes at SUNY Maritime, he intends on applying to both the NYPD and the FDNY.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c[My dad] pursued the things that he was passionate about, and earned the respect of the people around him while doing it,\u201d John says. \u201cHe would be proud of me looking to better myself.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article continues:<\/p>\n

Early in September 2001, Dan Lee was preparing for one last business trip before his daughter\u2019s birth. He and his wife, Kellie, had even picked out a name: Allison.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI remember him talking to her through my belly before he left,\u201d says Kellie, now 50.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Boston on Sept. 11, Dan boarded American Airlines Flight 11 for the trip home to Los Angeles. It never arrived \u2014 diverted by terrorists into the north tower of the World Trade Center, killing all those aboard and, after a second plane hit the south tower, some 2,600 others in the towers and on the ground.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Allison was born on Sept. 13. In the couple of days that followed, the hospital placed Kellie on suicide watch.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt hollow,\u201d says Kellie, who also had a 2-year-old daughter, Amanda, at home. \u201cBut I had babies to take care of.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

With time, the family began to heal. They moved to Las Vegas, where Kellie remarried, and her second husband, Chris, came to be like a father to the girls. Every Sept. 11, the family visits Dan\u2019s favorite restaurant, Islands, which has an outpost in Vegas. And while her sister has vague memories of their father, it was different for Allison. \u201cAll you get are stories,\u201d Allison says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…Allison, who\u2019ll move to Los Angeles next month to study at the Millennium Dance Complex, says that dancing helps her deal with the loss that\u2019s shaped her life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAnything I\u2019m feeling, I can express through dance,\u201d she says. In 2016, she and her dance troupe performed a tribute to Sept. 11<\/a>, with her family\u2019s story woven throughout the interpretation. It was an emotional experience, she says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we danced through it, I realized a whole part of me is missing,\u201d she says. \u201cIt helped me process it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most days, though, the strongest feeling she has when she thinks about Sept. 11 is one of gratitude, for her mom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think about how strong she was to go through that and still do all these things for us,\u201d Allison says. \u201cShe\u2019s the most positive person I know.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

And finally:<\/p>\n

There are signs that Joseph Reina is deeply connected to his late father, Joe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe was an operations manager for Cantor Fitzgerald, working on the 101st floor of the north tower when the planes hit. His wife, Lisa, was almost 8 months pregnant. She gave birth to Joseph in a haze on Oct. 4, still dreaming, she says, that her husband would find his way home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…Lisa still sees her son look up and smile, although she\u2019s yet to tell him what happened to his father: Joseph, who\u2019s on the autism spectrum and has difficulty communicating, wouldn\u2019t be capable of comprehending the tragedy, Lisa says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But she sometimes feels she doesn\u2019t need to tell him. \u201cHe just has a feeling,\u201d she says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She saw the strong physical resemblance between Joseph and his father \u2014 \u201cthe kind of guy who could light up a room\u201d \u2014 as early as her baby\u2019s first Christmas, when she took his picture and saw his daddy\u2019s funny smile. Back then, Lisa didn\u2019t know how she was going to raise him alone.<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are just a few of the stories. To many American children, the events of September 11th are something in history books (if they are told there). They are too young to remember the horror and uncertainty of that day. Before 9\/11 there were supposed to be rules of war–attacking civilian targets was considered uncivilized. In a sense, 9\/11 ended that myth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article telling the stories of some of the children who lost their parents in the September 11 terror attacks. The article reports: For the widows of 9\/11, some of whom were profiled by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[657,4289,8321,347],"class_list":["post-37026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-new-york-post","tag-september-11","tag-the-new-york-post","tag-world-trade-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37027,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37026\/revisions\/37027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}