For some families of the victims of 9/11, commemorating the tragedy remains a private affair
By Dylan Croll
Paul Ruback Jr.’s visit to One World Trade Center this September 11 marked a critical juncture in his life.
Not because of the moments of silence that took place to commemorate the anniversary of the tragedy that killed nearly 3,000 people. Not because of the solemn procession that walked an American flag through the monument. Not even because of the soaring Freedom Tower or the shimmering memorial pools. The visit was a significant one for Paul because his father died in the 9/11 attacks and it was the first time he’d ever been to Ground Zero.
Paul’s father, Paul Ruback Sr, a 50-year-old firefighter for Ladder Company 25, perished while rescuing civilians from the Twin Towers during the September 11 attacks. Distraught over his death, his family eventually fled New York to North Carolina, and never revisited the site.
Paul had no desire to visit Ground Zero growing up. Every year, the anniversary alone was enough to elicit deep sadness from his mother and siblings. Paul could not remember his father’s death, but his family’s grief distressed him. A commemoration event at the site would have been too much to handle.
“It was just awful, a really tough time of the year,” he recalled. “My mom was really upset. I would cry with her. ... It always really personally affected me.” To make the day seem like any other, he would attend school every September 11. “But I would just end up in the hallway crying by myself.”
But this year was different. At 22, Paul was now a grown man and ready to see where his father had been killed. He decided to bring his partner and another close friend. Together, they would visit the massive reflecting pools that had been constructed where the towers once stood. There, they would search for his father’s inscribed name on the bronze parapets bordering the water.
Still, Paul remained anxious. He wanted to share this moment with his companions, but not with everyone else. He wondered if there would be a large number of people gathered at Ground Zero to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, “I didn’t even know what it would be like at all,” he said. “But I figured there’d be like a lot of gawking… I didn’t really want to see people taking photos and things. So, I was worried about that.”
When he arrived, he found himself disquieted by a crowd surrounding the pools, which he had been sealed off for family members of victims.
“As we were entering and leaving, everyone knew that we were family members of the fallen.” Paul remembers, “People didn’t recognize me, but they knew we were personally tied to the event and it was an awkward experience.”
Many 9/11 families can relate to his reaction. After all, their loved ones didn’t die of cancer or old age in the intimate company of friends and family. Rather, they were murdered brutally as the whole world watched. The tragedy spurred a nationwide call to “never forget.” But for some, that meant balancing the broader commemoration of the tragedy with a need for private grieving.
Today, such individuals continue to struggle with this balance. For these folks, commemoration, though essential, can be triggering. As a result, they eschew public tributes altogether and instead spend the day alone or with family and close friends.
David Turner, who served as a firefighter at Ladder Company 4 in midtown Manhattan during 9/11, shares this preference.
When September rolls around, Turner refuses to speak at public events and keeps to himself, with one exception. Every year, on the anniversary, he travels up from his home in North Carolina to his old firehouse. There, he commiserates with fellow firefighters and the widows of those who died during the attacks.
He finds relief in the privacy of such gatherings. “There’s no media, no cameras, nothing. It’s us, our service, church, and that’s it.” Turner reflected: “If someone said to me, we’re not going to do this anymore….We’re going to go downtown, I’d be like no, I’m not doing that. I feel like it’s my security blanket. I’m safe here.”
Turner remains haunted by his memory of the World Trade Center attacks. When a plane first hit the North Tower on 9/11, he was off duty at home, roughly an hour upstate. His sister-in-law called to alert him of the attacks, and Turner knew he had to head into New York City.
When he made it to his midtown firehouse, it was completely empty. He looked at the riding board — where firefighting assignments are written down — to see which of his colleagues had responded to the attacks. He entered the empty garage and found several pairs of shoes where the firetruck usually stood.
“When you put your bunker gear on you take your shoes off and then you jump in your bunker gear, and you leave your shoes there,” Turner recalls, “And that’s when it hit. Like wow, you know, these guys left here an hour a half ago.”
By the time he arrived at Ground Zero, the towers had collapsed. Fifteen of his colleagues responded to the call that day. Not one of them made it home that night.
These memories have stayed with Turner in the years since the attacks. His grief is cyclical, and it comes to find him every year in September.
“The way I handle it is eleven months out of the year, I’m fine. But from like September 1 until at least a week or two after the eleventh, I’m in a complete funk. It’s just the way I’ve always dealt with it. I block it all out. It’s not like I don’t think of it,” he says, “I don’t bring it in, don’t talk about, and then I know when September comes around, that’s when I kind of let it out.”
These feelings make the intimate support of his fellow firefighters at the firehouse commemoration crucial. Their gatherings allow him to deal with the grief that has followed him since the attacks.
“They’re in the same boat. We can all relate. We all feel the same,” Turner says of the private firehouse commemorations.
It’s not unusual for grief to linger years after a public tragedy like 9/11. Nearly 20 percent of first responders continue to show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder according to The World Trade Center Health Disorder and reporting by NPR. Roughly 34 percent of 9/11 families — family members of the victims of September 11 — continue to show signs of depression, grief, and anxiety, according to the Journal of Trauma, a University of Michigan publication.
Dr. Heidi Horsley, a grief psychologist at Columbia University, has treated the families of firefighters who died on 9/11 for two decades. She says that the memory of the attacks never leaves them. Horsley also reveals that ever year, as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, some of these patients experience symptoms.
“People start getting sick. They feel depressed,” she explained. “They start getting into kind of a funk. And you know,…the closer they get to the anniversary date, they feel a little overwhelmed by feelings.”
She says that the 20th anniversary and commemoration events, while well-intentioned, often inundate 9/11 family members with reminders of past trauma.
“They might be in the store waiting in line and look over at People magazine in the front covers about 9/11,” she explains. “They might be sitting there in their car and all of a sudden something comes on about 9/11 on the radio. They might turn on the television to watch their favorite show and all of a sudden, there’s something about 9/11 on a commercial. It’s non-stop.”
But Horsley draws a caveat. She says that not all reminders are necessarily undesirable: “There are times where they welcome them and there’s times where they feel that they’re intrusive.”
Dr. Judith Kuriansky agrees. She holds the distinction of being not only a therapist, but a 9/11 first responder as well. She treated firefighters who went through the rubble of the Twin Towers after they had collapsed. After months of treating such patients, she realized that she too was traumatized.
“I’m a person who has been through it myself and has my own personal trauma of having been a responder and seen lots of people who were tremendously affected. And I had my own experience being affected,” Kuriansky said.
Gradually, she recovered by sharing her feelings with her mother and close friends. Today, she comfortably attends memorial events that celebrate the lives lost on 9/11, but she appreciates that not all those who experienced the consequences of the attacks may feel ready to do the same.
In fact, her own reactions to such events have changed significantly throughout the years.
“I went to various stages during these years. Some years. I didn’t want to watch the reading of the names all morning and some years, I needed to watch every piece of it. On this 20th anniversary, I bought every piece of memorabilia there was even though I was extremely upset. I was very, very upset.”
Kuriansky explains that public memorial events can either heal or re-traumatize 9/11 families and first responders.
“It can either help you cope better because you are in fact, processing the experience, or it can revive emotions that you don’t want to experience, and that can trigger emotions that you don’t feel you can cope with.”
Ultimately, 9/11 families don’t necessarily need to mourn privately; they just need the kindness of others and the space to do so. Dave Turner, the veteran midtown firefighter advises those who didn’t experience 9/11 personally to treat first responders and bereft family members with a light touch.
“Tread lightly and thank someone for their service and if they want to open up, they’ll open up about it,” he says.
Though Paul Ruback was unnerved by the crowd surrounding the 9/11 pools, he ultimately felt grateful for the memorial. These days, he thinks carefully about his father’s legacy, and how he might one day share it with his own children. Though he prefers to mourn privately, he’s happy that so many Americans gathered to honor his father and many others who lost their lives.
“I think it’s beautiful in a way that people have their own way of grieving or showing respect. And if it comes from the right place and it’s heartfelt, and meaningful to them, I really appreciate it.”
