"[This book] embodies the Buddhist wisdom about change, life, and the
world more than anything written after the events of that day."
Robert Stone

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September 7, 2006

REMEMBERING TOMMY

Last night, I attended the opening of a photo exhibition at the Fire Museum on 278 Spring Street (at Hudson and Varick). The show, "Faces of Ground Zero," is a collection of haunting, larger-than-life-sized Polaroids, shot by Joe McNally, depicting people who responded to the attacks with particular distinction, selflessness, and valor: firefighters, paramedics, fighter pilots, police officers, emergency teams.

At the reception, I spoke with Joanne Foley Gross and her mother, Patricia Foley. In my book, Joanne appears in a photo (also on exhibit last night and for the next few weeks) holding her brother Tommy's recovered fire helmet, tears in her eyes and on her cheek, bearing a truly inconsolable expression. "At first, I refused to be photographed," she now says, remembernig how she rebuffed phone calls from Nina Sabo, who was coordinating the shoots. "Nina called seven times. I kept saying, 'No.' The eighth time, something made me agree. [I] guess I wanted something that said, 'This is everlasting.'"

In 2000, her brother Tommy Foley had already become something of an FDNY poster boy. He had famously saved a highrise window-washer when his scaffolding collapsed. Graced with an actor's good looks, he appeared on calendars, on The Sopranos television show, and was named to two of People magazine's Hot Lists: The Sexiest Men At Work and, yes, America's Most Eligible Bachelors. He was 33 years old.

Along with his colleagues from Rescue 3, Tommy raced to the World Trade Center five years ago this week, and then went missing for ten days. Every morning, beginning on September 12, Joanne's firefighter brother, Danny, and Joanne's husband, K.C. (sometimes accompanied by Tommy's father), would go down to Ground Zero. Danny had vowed to his parents that he wouldn't stop searching until he could personally "bring Tommy home." Danny and K.C. spent their days and many nights assisting others in the massive recovery effort. Joanne would remark: "Every morning, it was like sending them off to war."

On the tenth day, September 21, Joanne's father, down at the site, looked through a pair of binoculars and spotted the "3," from a Rescue 3 helmet, peeping out of the rubble. They began digging. And, then and there, they say, uncovered the remains of Tommy Foley. "It was a miracle," recalls his mother, Pat.

Five years later, Tommy and his loss are ever present in his family's life. His father is now on two inhalers a day, Pat says, due to ailments suffered while down at Ground Zero. "My husband, 'til this day, goes to the cememtery twice a day, every day." Joanne concurs, "[He] doesn't miss a day, unless he's on vacation." Pat, a retired nurse and the owner of an ice cream store near Nyack, volunteers several times a month as a tour guide for the Tribute Center, the new facility which officially opened yesterday. (It will serve as a museum and gathering place until a bona fide memorial is established.) She walks visitors around the site and the Tribute Center exhibition space, and tells them about the World Trade Center, the events of that day, the work of the first responders, and her own family's story.

Joanne, for her part, allows, "My heart is still broken. It feels [like] not even a year, not five years. Now there's two of us"--meaning two siblings. "Tommy's on our shoulders."

Also on display at the Fire Museum gallery is a photo of Danny, his uniform covered in dirt, his expression dazed though determined, as a soldier might look, having come back from battle. Danny, formerly of Engine 68, has now transferred to Tommy's squad. Every day, he wears a Rescue 3 helmet. "They all look after him," says his mother.

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