May 13, 2002

Tonight, on HBO, they had a very good movie called "Telling Nicholas," a documentary about a 7-year-old boy whose mother was killed in the WTC on 9/11. I would like to say that it was wonderful, but some of it made me very uncomfortable, which is OK, because that's what the filmmaker wanted, I think.
This filmmaker, James Whitney, did a superb job: he not only filmed this lady victim's family in the aftermath of the attacks, but he included footage about his own friends and co-workers who were killed on 9/11 and had some very tender moments with a Bangladeshi-Muslim family whose father and husband had been killed also on that day while working at Windows on the World.
Mr. Whitney apparently even brought Nicholas and his family and the son of the Ahmed family together, even though Nicholas's grandmother at first professed (understandable under the circumstances) hatred for Arab/Muslim peoples.
The film struck a very personal note with me, bringing back all my memories of my Dad's sudden death when I was 10. My poor brother was the same age as little Nicholas then.
Nicholas's father did a better job telling Nicholas (10 days after the event) that his mother had died than my own mother did telling me. (My mother got someone else to do it.) After seeing the struggles the father went through-- I think most of all because he was having trouble accepting it himself-- I can understand why my mother shirked such a task--it very painful news for a parental messenger to bear.
Even James Whitney was crying! The boy was so precious, earnestly grieving, but understanding the finality of her death, which I thought was remarkable for a 7-year-old.
Before this 10th day, however, the family just told him that she was "missing." The torment that the whole family went through because of the "not knowing" for a certainty that Michele (Nicholas's mother) had been killed in the attack was almost worse than her death.
I know that I had trouble accepting my father's death even when I saw him in his casket, but for this little boy and even the adults, it was gut-wrenching. Their daughter, wife, and mother just went to work on that day and never, ever came back.
If Mr. Whitney reads this, thank you for your very touching film. It made 9/11 more meaningful in a new way by showing the way it effected the lives of "everyday" people. We mourn and salute the brave firefighters, policepersons, Transit Authority workers, etc. who gave their lives while doing their jobs. But tonight's film was about a civilian woman, an innocent, who never expected to give her life while working at a bond firm on the 97th floor of the WTC. Mr. Whitney, it was a wonderful Mother's Day tribute to a loving American mother who will never live to see her fine, bright son grow up.
As for you out there in the Ether, please consider giving to the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund for the children of the 9/11 victims like Nicholas and the Ahmed children here:Families of Freedom if you haven't already done so.

This is the fund set up by former Sen. Bob Dole and former president Clinton for that purpose.
Bill Clinton said that he was sure that "these young people will grow up to be something special." And I firmly believe it, even if the most unethical president in our history said it!