My husband Michael was an EMT with the Atlanta Fire Department for nineteen years. We met in 1992 at a barbecue at my brother's house — he was friends with my brother from high school — and we were married fourteen months later, in May of 1993. We had one son, Jacob, born in 1995.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Michael was off duty. He was at home with us, getting ready to take Jacob to soccer practice. When the first plane hit, he called his station, and they told him to come in. He kissed Jacob on the forehead. He told me he loved me. He drove into the city. He arrived at the south tower at 9:54 a.m. He was inside when it collapsed.
Jacob was six. He is thirty now. He has been a firefighter in Atlanta for eight years. He has two children of his own — Michael, who is four, and Sarah, who is two. He looks like his father in a way that sometimes stops me cold when I see him in uniform.
I have lived in Georgia my entire life. So did Michael. So has Jacob. Three generations now. There are days when the grief feels exactly like it did in October of 2001, raw and disbelieving. There are years when it loosens enough to let me sleep. There has not been a single day in twenty-four years that I have not thought of him.
This hex is for Michael. For everyone who ran toward the towers when everyone else was running away. For everyone who never made it home that morning. For the country we still believe in, despite everything. This country gave me my husband. This country took him from me. I do not know how to feel about that. I only know that I want his name written somewhere that will last.