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DENNIS BUCKLEY: From Lacrosse to Pool

 

Dennis Buckley of Chatham, N.J., was a big man, 6 feet, 210 pounds, with an athletic build. He had been a star lacrosse player at Lynbrook High School and graduated from the University of Maryland, which he attended on a full lacrosse scholarship. "He still walks like he's carrying a lacrosse stick," said his wife, Cathleen, speaking of him in the present tense, although she had just come from making funeral arrangements.

He was 38, a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald, the father of three girls ranging in age from 22 months to 6 years. A memory his wife holds dear is the massive Mr. Buckley taking his three girls, with their three pink Barbie doll towels, to the swim club. His eldest daughter, Mary Kate, had her sixth birthday 12 days after the attack, and Mrs. Buckley decided to go on with the party. "She's 6," Mrs. Buckley said. "Not having it would be like almost taking it away from her."

She speaks of what has become a community of loss, the World Trade Center people who did not come home, and begins to weep. "As short as it was, I was really lucky to know him. Part of me looks at these younger widows. I at least have my family."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times