Life goes on
Best-selling author relates story of recovery from Sept. 11 attacks
By Catherine Pillsbury
Staff Reporter

Families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11 continue to love, laugh and dance, author Gail Sheehy said at the Fogelson Honors Forum Wednesday night.

Sheehy told the stories of Middletown, N.J., which lost nearly 50 people in the Sept. 11 attacks, to a nearly-full Ed Landreth Hall Auditorium.

The stories are featured in her book, “Middletown, America: One Town’s Passage from Trauma to Hope.”

“This is not a Sept. 11 book; it’s stories about people putting their lives back together,” Sheehy said.

Sheehy, who was invited to speak by the Honors Program, made history with her first book, “Passages,” because it remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for more than three years and appeared in 28 languages.

Sheehy said she lived with, observed and interviewed more than 900 people in Middletown for her book.

She said she discovered how people turned their anger in action.

“There is a new normal for Americans after the post 9/11,” Sheehy said.

The physical Ground Zero is in Manhattan, but the emotional Ground Zero was in the suburbs, Sheehy said.

“We, as Americans, have to face the fact that we live in a world of harm,” she said.

Sheehy told the story of one man who used to wonder if something similar to Pearl Harbor happened, would Americans ever be able to find selfless, brave people?

“Something similar did occur, and we did find those people,” Sheehy said.

Sophomore history major Whitney Merritt said the speech was enjoyable.

“It gave me new ways of thinking about 9/11 and how the widows are doing two years later,” she said.

Freshman premajor Ashley Vasicek said it was interesting to hear how victims’ families adapted to life after their loses.

“It was neat to see how people dealt with the traumatic experiences and how they continued on,” she said.

Sheehy said she took people who lost family in the attacks to meet with the survivors who lost family in the Oklahoma City bombing. She told the story of one woman who lost her husband on Sept. 11. A man came and put his arm around her but didn’t say a word, she said.

Before he left her side, the man told her that he had lost his daughter in the Oklahoma City bombing, she said.

“We should celebrate the way they lived,” Sheehy said. “And remind ourselves to do the important things we wished we did before.”