"After 9/11, I used to hate everybody around me. I was just so - mad,” says
Erik Abrahamson, whose father, William, was working in the World Trade
Center during the terrorist attacks. Erik, just 11 years old when his father
was killed, is about to start college. He looks like any average American
teenager - black T-shirt, brown floppy hair, a little awkward - but when he
talks about that day his jaw tightens.
“I used to hate just everyone, how they looked at me, everything,” he says.
“It's only this year that I've started to really come to grips with what
went on. And how much I've changed.”
Brielle Saracini's father, Victor, was captain of the hijacked United Airlines
Boeing 767 that crashed into the southern tower. Now 17, she is a pretty,
articulate schoolgirl who finds she can't remember her father's face clearly
any more. “Some of my memories are fading and it scares me,” she says. “I
remember his voice because it's still on his voicemail: ‘Hi this is Victor.
I'll get back to you as soon as I can', he says.” Brielle pauses and looks
away. “Sometimes it bothers me that he won't get back to me. But it has
taken me all these years to realise that.”
Nearly 3,000 children under the age of 18 lost a parent during the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001. The average age of the “9/11 kids” when the
twin towers fell was 9, but some were babies (or in their mothers' wombs).
In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy many organisations clamoured to
offer assistance to the grieving children, offering everything from
counselling to music lessons, summer camps, mentoring, art therapy and
scholarships. But, seven years on, it seems that “9/11 fatigue” has set in:
funding for many of these support projects has dried up along with sympathy
from friends and family.
According to the charity Tuesday's Children, which has provided support to
5,000 family members since its inception in 2001, some children are only
just beginning to open up about losing their parents. “This year, some kids
were able to express things for the first time,” says Terry Grace Sears, who
is involved in running summer camps and mentoring programmes for the 9/11
kids. “Particularly the young boys were grieving.”
Sears says that some children were too young at the time of their loss to
comprehend it, while others felt they needed to stay strong for the
surviving parent and repressed their grief. They need support now as much as
ever - as the years go by there are new challenges for the 9/11 kids to face
as surviving parents move on, remarry and form stepfamilies. In some cases
grief has driven families apart, and rifts with the deceased parents'
relatives have left some 9/11 kids estranged from their grandparents.
On top of this comes the annual media frenzy on the anniversary of 9/11, which
sparks emotions ranging from anger to revulsion and grief in the young
victims. “They're showing my dad's death and it's just offensive,” says
Erik. “Every time I see it, it brings up so much and it actually really
hurts.”
“You can't escape it. It's just everywhere you go,” agrees Amy Gardner, 16,
who was interviewed along with Erik and Brielle for the US television news
programme 60 Minutes. Her father was one of the 343 New York firefighters
and paramedics killed in the line of duty on 9/11.
It's hardly surprising that a recent study indicated that the rate of
psychiatric disorders is more than double the norm among children who lost
loved ones in the 2001 terrorist attacks. Researchers at Weill Cornell
Medical College in New York studied 45 of the 9/11 children over two years
to 2007 and found that more than 50 per cent were displaying signs of an
anxiety disorder, while a third had symptoms of post-traumatic stress
disorder. And 27 per cent of the bereaved children showed symptoms of
separation anxiety, while depression was also a common problem - 14 per cent
had a major depressive disorder, nearly three times as many as in the
control group.
Yet as the years pass, families of US victims say that support from relatives
has waned or even stopped completely, the implication being that they should
simply “get on with their lives”. A survey of 110 families by the World
Trade Center Family Centre found that nearly a quarter were now receiving
little or no support from family and friends. Comments from respondents
included: “Some family members say to get on with it now,” and “We were
originally inseparable but now we are going our separate ways”.
The WTCFC has been forced to close its doors to 9/11 families. The centre, on
Long Island, ran counselling facilities and support groups for more than
6,000 family members and first responders but folded in June this year due
to lack of funding. Dr Minna Barrett, a psychologist who ran programmes for
the centre, recommended that her clients continue to meet in peer-support
groups because the effects of 9/11 continue. For some they are only just
coming to the surface. “Many people repressed their trauma and waited years
before seeking support,” she says.
The World Trade Center United Family group, run by victims' families, also
lost its funding this year but is struggling to stay afloat.
These programmes, and many others like them, relied on funding from the Red
Cross September 11 recovery programme, which distributed more than $1
billion in direct aid and recovery grants to more than 100 organisations in
the aftermath of the attacks. But the programme came to an end earlier this
summer, forcing many groups to close or seek alternative sources of funding.
So what does this mean for the 9/11 kids? Tuesday's Children - whose youngest
member is 6 years old - was forced to cut its staff by a third this year
when Red Cross funding dried up and keeping its projects going has become a
constant challenge. “So many people have already dug deep into their pockets
to help us,” says Carmine Calzonetti, Tuesday's Children president. “But we
just have to keep knocking on doors and demonstrating that what we're doing
is still important. People might feel that the events of 9/11 are in the
past, but for these kids the repercussions of the attacks will never
disappear.”
Despite the constant struggle for money, the charity aims to support each
child through college and into adulthood, although organisers recognise that
it's time for a change of direction.
“It's time for the 9/11 kids to start giving something back,” says Calzonetti,
who believes the way forward lies in healing through helping others. Recent
initiatives, such as Helping Heals, have focused on translating personal
loss into a meaningful legacy for the future. Brielle, Amy and Erik were
among a group of Tuesday's Children who helped to build a school in Costa
Rica and assisted victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. “As these
kids grow up they become more aware of just how much people have helped
them,” Calzonetti says. “They also want to use their experiences and work
with other kids around the world to build a more peaceful future.”
The initiative this summer, Project Common Bond, brought together 49 teenagers
whose lives have been directly affected by terrorism. “Project Common Bond
allows children from all over the world - the US, England, Northern Ireland,
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Israel - who have experienced similar tragedies,
to build resilience and strength together,” says Calzonetti. The children,
including Martin Hart who lost his father in the London 7/7 bombings,
engaged in team-building activities and discussions on global leadership
issues. They developed a proclamation that was presented to Michael
Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, and to the United Nations in which they
pledged to “aid in resolving global conflicts and make change for the
generations to come”.
For Martin, whose father, Giles, was killed in the bus bomb on July 7, 2005,
the project was the first opportunity to meet other kids who had lost
parents to terrorism. “It really helped to know that I'm not the only one,”
he says. “It all still feels very raw - for all of us. The camp helped us to
deal with our own feelings but also to think how we could work together to
make the world a better place.”
So is it possible for the children of 9/11 to move forward, without forgetting
the past? “I don't think I would be the same person if 9/11 hadn't happened
to me,” Brielle Saracini says. “It has made me realise that I need to be
nicer to people. Maybe if I can help give back something it will spread and
people won't do things such as hijack aeroplanes and take the lives of other
people.”
Brielle's friend Bridget Fisher, a 19-year-old student at Villanova
University, Philadelphia, agrees. Her father John was a security guard in
the World Trade Center who ran back into the building when he heard the
explosion. Smiling through her tears, Bridget says: “After 9/11 happened, I
remember saying, ‘How am I ever gonna be happy?' But I figured it's by
making other people happy. It's by doing good deeds for other people. That's
what makes me happy.”
www.tuesdayschildren.org
A survivor's story
Martin Hart was 17 when he lost his father, Giles, in the London terrorist
attacks of July 7, 2005. He lives with his mother, Danute, and his sister,
Maryla, in Hornchurch, Essex, and is now at college studying drama. This
summer he attended Project Common Bond along with children from all over the
world who had lost a parent to terrorism.
“When my dad was killed it felt like I didn't have time to grieve. There was
so much to do. Suddenly I was the man of the house and all the
responsibility that entailed was foisted upon me. I had to take on so many
new jobs, as well as trying to offer support to my mum and my sister - there
just was no space for me to grieve.
“As a boy you are expected to be manly and crying is not a manly thing to do.
I cried a bit at my dad's funeral, but otherwise I've kept my feelings to
myself. “But you don't just get over losing a parent in that way.
Three years on there are daily reminders of what I have lost. My dad helped
me a lot with my studies and after he died I really struggled. Just the
other day I wished that he was here to show me how to do something on the
computer and I constantly feel the lack of a male person to look up to and
relate to.
“This summer at Project Common Bond was the first time I was able to express
my grief openly, which was a huge release. I guess it was because all the
kids there understood.
“I still really struggle to forgive the people who killed my dad but
talking to others about the need for forgiveness definitely got me thinking.
The project convinced me that those of us who have suffered at the hands of
terrorists can play a really important role in shaping the future of the
world and helping to overcome terrorism. We have to be better than them -
it's as simple as that.”
