9/11 Remembered - "The Empty Chair"

9/11 Remembered – “The Empty Chair”

Prelude: I have changed the names of the people, and a location out of respect to their and their families’ privacy.

November 23, 2002 is a day that I will not forget, because I was reminded of a personal loss and impact of 9/11 during a wedding in Nashville.  The groom, Randall, was a close and chilhood friend from New York City.  Almost all of his other friends were people that I knew, but I had lost contact with them over years, primarily because they were three years younger than me in school.  Most of us communicated with the normal cocktail type chit-chat. 

I did not expect the reminder to be powerful that evening until a mutual friend friend, Kevin, sat down next next to me as the band played during the reception.  After a minute or so, as we talked and looked at an empty chair at the table, he said, “Drew should have been here.”  Kevin was right. That chair was Drew’s, and it was empty.   Drew did not die from an illness, an accident, or some freak event.  He was murdered on 9/11.  There in his Cantor-Fitzgerald office on the morning of September 11^th, we lost a friend and teammate.

Kevin and I stared at that this empty chair for a brief moment as we discussed the tragedy. Randall and I talked about it on the evening of September 14, 2011 when he called me.  I had thought about calling him that morning after I learned of Drew’s death during a Fox News interview with his sister.  It was a comforting call, because finally I was able to talk with a friend who emotionally understood what 9/11 means, and because of an event at my former church earlier that evening; a woman non-chalantly asked a group of us if we knew anybody who died on 9/11.  No one else had an empty chair among that church group.    

Drew, Randall and his brother Bill, Kevin and I used to play and hang out over at Randall’s house, and also my parents’ backyard in the Bronx.   The properties were separated by a fence that Randall’s father partially replaced with a gate.  We attended the same school, and played on some teams together. Upon graduation, we would occasionally see each other at our “field of dreams,” i.e. the football field.  There is special bond among those players.  Terrorists tried to break it on 9/11.  Personally, I will not let them win.  A picture of my football team sits on an end table in my home.  It stands as a reminder for the other “empty chairs” I know.

In each of our lives, we have empty chairs, and most can be accepted, albeit painfully. They are a fact of life.  People die and they leave a void that cannot be replaced.  Even if it is an offspring, you can accept their death, but not when they were murdered by foreign invaders who attack your home.  Right after 9/11 on September 29, 2001, I experienced Drew’s mother being huged by a former teacher.  She cried continously, and repeatedly asked, “Why?”  I still have no answer that is that is either politically correct, or comforting.  All I know is that there is an “empty chair” for Drew among all the people that he blessed with his presence.  As we must continue to live our lives to the fullest, we need to keep the “empty chair” out of respect for the family and friends we have lost on 9/11.