friend of Israel 🇮🇱🇺🇸🧡

My life was completely changed by 9/11. Not right away. On that bright, blue Tuesday morning, I was moving into a new apartment in Hudson Heights, way up near the George Washington Bridge in northern Manhattan, far, far away from Ground Zero. My TV wasn't yet working, and social media didn't exist yet, so I didn't even see the footage until that evening, sitting in a neighborhood restaurant, watching the towers fall over and over. I didn't know anyone who died. But two and a half years later, freshly divorced and starting to date again, I met a sweet man at a mutual friend's birthday party. When he emailed me to ask me out, I accepted and swiftly asked my mutual friend what he was like and if there was anything I should know. “Oh, he’s so nice,” she began, “but there is one thing you should probably know.” She paused before continuing: “His fiancee died on 9/11. That’s how I know him. Through her.” My heart sank. Newly-divorced woman and 9/11 widower? The odds of romantic success, unfortunately, seemed low. Our chances seemed even less promising during our first date walking through Central Park, when he told me he had met his fiancee on September 11, 1999. He had made an anniversary dinner reservation at their favorite restaurant, only to fall to his knees in his office after hearing the news. I could barely hold it together while we walked silently past Strawberry Fields. I bent down to pet a passing beagle puppy. “Amy loved dogs,” he said sadly, jamming his hands in his pockets. Here I was, listening to a grieving man talk about a woman whose last terrifying moments were spent at Windows on the World on the top floor of the North Tower. A professional event planner, Amy had arrived early that morning to set up for a company breakfast. After a few dates, he invited me over to his apartment for dinner. As I sad on the living room couch, he knelt down and put a small, yet incredibly heavy, slab of rock in my hand. “They gave all the victim’s families a piece,” he said matter-of-factly. It was an actual piece of the Twin Towers, inscribed with the never-to-be-forgotten date. For a long time I was overwhelmed by Amy's presence in our relationship, and by the constant images and memories of September 11 that seemed to hang relentlessly like rain clouds over the entire city, even though several years had passed. I felt even more overwhelmed a couple of years later when he took me to the Family Room at One Liberty Plaza. It was on the 20th floor, directly overlooking the World Trade Center site. It was established it in 2002 as a private place specifically for families of people killed on 9/11. It was not open to the public or the press. It was filled to the brim with photographs, missing-person posters, handwritten notes, poems, cards, artwork, flowers, and stuffed animals. It was suffocating. 25 years later, 9/11 rarely comes up much anymore between us. My husband and I have been happily married now for 18 years, and September 11 is also connected to something beautiful - my niece was born on that day in 2008. But it will always remain hard to wrap my mind around the fact that the end for Amy Hope Lamonsoff who was only 29 in 2001, was a new beginning for me. I hope you Google her. She is certainly always remembered by those who knew and loved her.