Skip to main content

In Memory of...

 

I still remember driving over the GWB to ground zero early in the morning. Then back hpme to New Jersey about 14-17 hours later on a weekend evening. The kind, friendly, caring, firefighters,  police officers, paramedics and those volunteers from all over the U.S. and Canada too that I met as I walked to ground zero, worked and walked back to my car usually a mile or so away. The last day at night a NYFD firefighter saw me carrying my therapy chair backpack and a bag of therapy items.  I had another mile to walk. He was so tall, the firefighting gear he wore made him look even taller. He was in his late 30s. He asked, "You leaving?" I replied l, "Yes." He responded, "I saw you earlier working.  Let me help you. Where's your car?" I was astonished. He stopped me and took my backpack and therapy chair off my shoulders and hoisted them up on his shoulders. We walked and talked at 10pm for 20 minutes or so to just blocks before my car. Then other firefighter had this golf cart like vehicle,  the firefighter commandeered his buddy. He loaded my stuff on to the back of the little golf-cart like vehicle. It was Lou. I got to know Lou over the weekends I had worked at ground zero. He was an older firefighter of about age 50. He lost most of the firefighters from his firehouse.  He proceeded to tell me jokes as he drove me to my car the rest of the way that night.---Jody-Lynn Reicher 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2023 Holiday Letter from the Reicher's

Well, I didn't think I'd be doing a Holiday Letter this year, but here goes... The Spirit of Norm is in the air. As the wind whips with minus a true snowstorm.  In hopes the Farmers Almanac was correct, I pray to the snow gods. Rain ensued the month of December thus far. We have nearly tripled the amount of rainfall usual for December in New Jersey. And I've witnessed its treachery. Storms such as these hit us hardest in July. Then remained fairly intense through til about early October.  Our daughters are doing well, Thank God.  Their Dad would be proud of them. Our oldest Sarah, now a Junior at UCLA pursuing her degree in Chemical Engineering. She's digging the whole California scene. Which I thought it was for her. She's had some good traveling on her off times from school. For her March 2023 week off, she drove her and a few friends out to Lake Tahoe and went downhill skiing for a first in nearly 5 years. She had to rent the ski equipment.  Funny enough when ...
3 comments
Read more

"It’s the Hardest Thing..."

My friend since 1996, neighbor and pet care person texted back, "It's the hardest thing...". She texted back the morning just hours prior to my decision to have our last pet euthanized. It's not something I'd ever done. Although I've been told I have a killer instinct. Which I've discovered over the past 20 years that would be true. A promoter said that to my fight coach after my first cage fight. The promoter saw the charged smile on my face after I'd just lost to a decision. I am disciplined, so thank God for that. My feeling is we all have that, but not the amount I've discovered I have, and most certainly most do not have the obsessive level of discipline I have had or have. Fast forward to yesterday afternoon holding our bunny for quite sometime before her sedation in a veterinary treatment room.  About 20 minutes later the vet and vet tech arrived finding a spot to inject a sedative into our pet bunny. They said it would take ten minutes, th...
1 comment
Read more

I Made a List

I'm uncertain if I actually made a list when I was age seven; however, it went something like this: "Dear God, Please make me as courageous, brave and strong as King David, but without the bad things like adultery. And I want poor people to have money. I think the rich can give it. Amen. Oh, and I'd like a dog, please. Amen again." By the way, after begging my parents since age four for a dog of my own, I received one for Christmas six years later. I'd pray some more. Humbly, bless myself and ask God to please wake me up in the morning with health and if not please take my soul to heaven to be with Him. Yeah, that was me, a baptized Catholic girl, aged seven with a Lutheran father and a Catholic mother. My mother was not keen on the Catholic Church. Four years later, I'd find out why. Why my mom would change churches and get us into the Church of the Nazereen before I was age seven and my brother before age nine. I can say the three of us truly enjoyed the Chu...
Post a Comment
Read more