9/11 and Teddy Maloney

On this horrible day, people will gather to remember and mourn their dead across the country, and, in Greenwich, a 25th Anniversary September 11 Remembrance Service will be held 8:30 - 10:30; Guests are asked to arrive by 8:30 so that the service can begin promptly at 8:46, the exact time the first plane slammed into the North Tower.*

So many died that it’s hard to truly gather the enormity of loss — tied to the financial industry as it is, Greenwich alone saw 33 murdered that day; our sons, daughters, and friends. So it’s easier for me to focus on just one, Sally Maloney’s son, Teddy, 32, married in 1998 to his childhood sweetheart Brinley, father of their 14-month daughter Mason, and expecting a new baby girl, who would be named Teddy in his memory, in two months. He left for the Towers that morning and never came back.

Sally and I didn’t know each on that day, but we met a few years later when I entered the realtor world, and became friends. Then, some years later, when my John was dying, we bonded, because the pain at the loss of a child seems unique among all the worlds woes, and have remained steadfast friends since. So every year I try to remember Teddy here on these pages and send Sally my love.

The writer Robert Dugani, who lost his own father at ten, concluded one of his mystery novels with a scene where the protagonist is kneeling by his murdered wife's gravestone. He glances over and sees an older woman placing flowers on what turns out to be her husband's grave, dead some 35 years. "When does it stop?" the protagonist asks her, and she replies "The ache in your heart each morning when you wake to realize she's really gone? "It doesn't. Time doesn't heal all wounds. But it does deaden the pain so that we can go on."

That’s about as sad, and accurate, as I can bear this morning. Blessings to all, and especially to you, Sally.

All my love on this horrible day,

*Back in 2015, Greenwich native and writer and Jerry’s son, wrote an excellent article on the Memorial and how it came to be built. Highly recommended.