Web Exclusives:
TigersRoar

More letters from alumni about

September 22, 2001

To a Parent Who Lost a Spouse:

After the events of September 11 and based on my own experience, I want to offer advice to a surviving parent raising a young child. I was born in 1940. In 1942, our home burned, and we (my mother, her parents, and I) were rescued by members of the Union City, New Jersey, Fire Department. Unfortunately, my grandmother, who had been ill, succumbed two days after the fire.

At that time, my father was at sea, serving as an ordinary seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Seven months later, his ship was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic. All were lost.

Those were the circumstances, which my mother related to me gradually and without a lot of details from the time I was about five or six. As you will do, she told me stories and events in the life of both my grandmother and father.

She told me that my father was brave. Certainly, a parent whose spouse died resisting the hijackers or serving in the uniformed services that responded will do the same. But all who died that day were brave — going to work every day to provide for a family and to contribute to our nation and society is an act of courage. Tell your child that.

My mother never expressed any feelings of anger or hatred, but, for some time after World War II, I did have such feelings for leaders who brought about such events. She always encouraged me to meet each person as an individual, not as a member of a group. In the middle of your feelings of anger, I urge you to prepare for your child’s similar feelings. Teach them not to indict a group for the acts of individuals.

Human loss as a result of deliberate, violent acts leaves behind, I believe, a special grief and sorrow, perhaps because the dead are seen as cheated. As your child grows and matures, the sense of loss may increase. He or she will know the sweetness of life, such as the love and pride that I feel for my wife and daughters, that the departed parent enjoyed only partly or for a short time. I encourage you to talk about these feelings.

Finally, your child in time and with experience will appreciate the struggle in which you are now engaged. She or he will admire your courage, and may think of her or his care as a burden. Your child may not speak of this, not wanting to add to your sorrow. Therefore, as my mother let me know in different words, tell your child that the blossoming, irrepressible, uproarious life, barely contained in that little body, not only made the effort necessary – it made it possible.

With Sympathy,
Robert B. Comizzoli *67 p’92
Belle Mead N.J.

Respond to this letter
Send a letter to PAW

Go back to our online Letter Box Table of Contents