Remembering Vanessa Lang Langer and Joe Sisolak on 9/11

Every September 11th, I think about Donna Marsh O'Connor. She lost her daughter Vanessa Lang Langer when the second tower of the World Trade Center fell. Each anniversary remains nearly intolerable for her to endure. Yet four years ago, just before her daughter's birthday, Donna had the presence of mind to write about what she knew of Vanessa's death.

Thousands lost their lives that day, but that number is too large to grasp, so I focus on one story and one name I know - Vanessa Lang Langer - and the words that Donna penned:

Seven weeks before her twenty-ninth birthday, Vanessa, four months pregnant, ran from the falling towers of the World Trade Center. She did not make it. Her body, and in it the small body of her unborn child, was pulled from the rubble of the fallen towers on September 24th, just ten feet from an alley between towers IV and V. It is important for me to tell you that she was on the phone to her uptown office five minutes after the first plane hit tower I, explaining how she and others in tower II were "safe."

Just like that, Donna lost a daughter and a grandchild. She lost her future. Today Vanessa would have been just shy of 36 years old, and the baby no longer a baby, but over six years old.

On September 11th, I also remember Joseph Sisolak. At the church his sister and I both attended, she stood up in the weeks following 9/11, talking about her search for her brother. I still recall her vivid descriptions of the intensity of her days in New York City, one of thousands of family members searching for loved ones lost, hoping desperately that he would turn up safe and sound. On a tribute page to Joe is a photo, and I see the family resemblance between brother and sister. I want to reach out to her today to tell her that Joe is in my thoughts, but I don't want to intrude.

But I can remember, and I can link you to their stories here.

Someone's daughter.

Someone's brother.

September 11th is a date on the calendar, but it is a hole in the hearts and the lives of these two women.

If either of you read this, please know you're in my thoughts.