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LUCY FISHMAN: Antsy on First Day of School

 

Tuesday was the first day of school for Lucy Fishman's 3-year- old son, Jason. Her family sometimes theorizes that she stayed at her office in the trade center because she wanted to hear from her husband, Gene Springer, how it had gone: if Jason had cried, if he went willingly, that kind of thing. Whatever, when Mr. Springer called Ms. Fishman, 36, an executive secretary at Aon Research, in her 105th floor office, he got only her voice mail.

Family was what mattered to Ms. Fishman. This summer she and her husband built a big pool in their backyard in Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, and that's where they and the kids -- Jason and his sister Samantha, 11 -- hung out. Ms. Fishman's favorite movie? She liked action pictures, her younger sister Mary Dwyer said, but the movie did not really matter; she just liked curling up next to her husband. He agreed to talk to a reporter about her, but he began to weep and was unable to speak, so it fell to Ms. Dwyer. "A week before this happened we went to the Bronx Zoo with the kids," Ms. Dwyer said. "I went with my two children. It started raining, everybody went running, we were just taking our shoes off, walking in puddles, and singing in the rain. That night, me and my sister went out dancing."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times