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Lawrence Boisseau: Grim Omens

 

Early last September, Lawrence Boisseau, the fire safety director at OCS Security, had a dream that the World Trade Center, where he worked, was coming down on him. A few days later his wife, Maria Teresa, had a bad dream about debris, followed the next night by a nightmare about people bringing food, mountains of it. And on their way to a christening on Sept. 9 the couple talked about death.

"He even said to me, `You know, if the time comes, if you need somebody to take care of you, I don't mind.' That's how giving and caring he was," she said.

"In my case, I said, 'If I die first, you are not getting married.' I swear to God." She laughed. "He said, 'Oh, that's not fair. How come? I'm allowing you to remarry if you need to.' I said, `No, I don't want to share this feeling. I don't want any woman to share this relationship with you, just me. The feeling that I have, I just want to lock inside my heart."'

On Sept. 11 Mr. Boisseau, 36, helped knock out the windows of a ground-floor child care center at the Trade Center; the grandparents of several of the children he helped rescue attended his memorial service with their pictures, said his brother, Bob Simon.

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times