Memorial lights honoring the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. / Shutterstock
11 September 2022, 4:00am, Washington, DC Newsroom (CNA).
Nearly three thousand names are etched into bronze at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. However, ten of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks had no names. Each is instead remembered as a “unborn kid.”
“Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas and her unborn child” are among those commemorated in this manner.
On September 11, Jack Grandcolas lost the two people he held the most: his wife Lauren and their unborn child. His 38-year-old pregnant wife died on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against hijackers rerouting the flight to Washington, D.C. In his new memoir, “Like A River To The Sea: Heartbreak and Hope in the Wake of United 93,” Grandcolas recounts his loss and search for hope.
On September 6, Rare Bird published the book, which begins with a dedication to his lost kid.
He begins, “Dear Son… or Daughter,” followed by a colon. “I am writing this book on my therapist’s recommendation. She believed it would be beneficial to discuss your parents and why you will always have a place in history.
This child would be 20 years old today. Grace, if she were a girl; Gavin, if she were a guy.
Grandcolas recalls that Lauren was three months pregnant when she flew from their California home to New Jersey for her grandmother’s funeral. At her urging, he remained behind to tend to their sick cat.
He adds, “We were ecstatic at the prospect of becoming parents, having spent the previous decade trying to conceive.” “There had been many heartbreaks along the way, including Lauren’s miscarriage in 1999 at the age of 36. Two years later, we were resigned to rearing only cats when a miracle occurred.
On September 11, 2001, Lauren and their “miracle” were scheduled to return to California.
That morning, Grandcolas awoke to an answering machine message. After falling back asleep, he awoke to see what he called the “form of an angel.”
Had a someone he knew lately passed away?
He concluded that it must be Lauren’s grandmother. Then he understood that it was Lauren.
When he checked his answering machine, he heard a message that would forever alter the course of his life.
“Honey, do you hear me? Jack? “Pick up, honey,” Lauren’s voice heard. “All right, I’ll simply tell you that I love you. We are experiencing a minor issue on the plane. I am fine and content, and I am currently okay. Know that I love you more than anything else in the world. It’s simply a minor issue, so I’ll… Honey, I just love you. Please convey my love to my family. Bye, honey.”
“At that moment, I realized Lauren and our child were gone,” he says about his college sweetheart and their child.
At the 9/11 monument in New York City, an unborn child is honored as a victim of the terrorist events of September 11. Katie Yoder/CNA
His wife’s funeral was held in a Houston Catholic church. According to him, Lauren was not a religious person. However, in the months preceding her death, she began attending a weekly Bible study.
“One evening she arrived home saying, ‘I finally get it,’” he recalls. When he prompted her by asking, “Get what?” she replied, “The significance of everything.”
Grandcolas, who was reared Catholic, struggled with his faith.
“What sort of gracious God would take my beloved Lauren and our child?” he questioned. Later, he determined that it was not God but rather human ideology.
After a conversation with Bono, the lead singer of the famous rock band U2, he experienced God again. Bono performed “One Tree Hill,” Lauren’s favorite U2 song, in her honor at an Oakland Coliseum concert in 2005. Then, Grandcolas revealed himself to the vocalist.
“Being raised Catholic, you’re given all this guilt about things you’ve done wrong,” he told Bono. “I fear that I may have made a mistake in my life and mortgaged my chance to see Lauren again,”
“She will be seen again. I am aware of that. “We all make mistakes in life,” he says. Bono comforted him. “Because of this, God forgives us. It is his greatest gift.”
He claims that Bono’s remarks transformed him and his faith.
Since September 11, 2001, I had questioned God’s plan for me, he writes. “The night was a memorial to her, but it also liberated me, allowing me to be more forgiving of myself and rekindling my faith in God’s mercy.”
On August 17, 2016, an unnamed man stares through a glass at the Flight 93 National Memorial Visitor Center in the vicinity of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The window provides a view of the impact location. Shutterstock
Lauren is described by Grandcolas as a woman with a gorgeous smile, a dazzling attitude, and a naughty side. After meeting in college, they married and remained together as he advanced in the newspaper industry and she assumed the role of marketing manager.
He struggled with melancholy, PTSI (Post-Traumatic Stress Injury), frequent drinking, fear of abandonment, and survivor’s guilt after losing her and their child. He found, with the use of EMDR counseling, that “for all these years I had been mourning Lauren without properly grieving for the child we had lost.”
“Over the years, that child became larger and older in my thoughts,” he writes. “I knew I could not move on until I had said goodbye to the baby I never got to hold.”
Today, Lauren and their unborn child’s memory lives on through memorials across the country, the Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas Foundation, and now his book.
“[A]s “As I continue to dwell on the highs and lows of the last two decades, I’ve come to appreciate how fortunate I am,” he explains. “I have twice found genuine love. Despite having suffered two terrible tragedies, I possess a tenacious spirit and a zest for life. All of my wounds continue to heal, but I will always bear the emotional scars of losing Lauren and our child, just as I will always bear the physical scars of my burns.
“We all experience loss. We all experience heartache. “You are defined by how you respond to these catastrophes,” he says. “Oftentimes, the most beautiful things emerge from our darkest hours.”