A Decade of Hope (36 page)

No other parents had to go through what we had to go through. It was horrible. Such a great injustice. You give your life, try to save your fellow Americans, and then this nation goes after you, calling you a terrorist.

 

On the day we were leaving for Mecca—October 12, 2001—a
New York Post
reporter came to talk to me about Salman and what he had been doing. He asked me, “Oh, your other son is the president of the MSA [Muslim Students Association] at Binghamton?” Adnaan was the president that year, and he was running for the secretary of some other organization.

That put my antennas up, and I said, “I don't trust you.” While he was sitting there a reporter from the
New York Times
called, and then one from
Newsday
. I asked them, “What brings you back to my house so many months later?” Something must have happened to bring all the media back. One of the newsmen, from the
Daily News,
told me there was a flyer at the NYPD with your son's name on it, asking anyone who knows Mohammed Salman Hamdani to come forward. I still have the flyer.

Despite this we left that day for Mecca. And the next day, October 13, the story hit the media that our family had gone to Mecca to pray for their son—except for the
New York Post
, whose headline was MISSING—OR HIDING?—MYSTERY OF NYPD CADET FROM PAKISTAN, by William J. Gorta and Simon Crittle. The implication and insinuation was that Salman was linked with terrorists and was seen at the Midtown Tunnel at 9:00 A.M. that day. After the funeral, much later, in April, I was watching New York 1 News, and the banner that ran at the bottom read: MOHAMMED SALMAN HAMDANI, WHO WAS THOUGHT TO BE A TERRORIST, WAS A HERO.

After we returned from Mecca two weeks later, on October 25, 2001, it was amazing: Calmness had descended upon us. Stepping into that mosque in Mecca was so peaceful. We needed that to get out of the grief. When we came back, everybody said we looked relieved. We were not unhappy, not so much in depression.

While I was over in Mecca I had a very significant dream. After performing the ritual of the Omra I went to sleep with a prayer asking God to just tell me whether Salman was alive or not. When I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, at the call of Adhan, I was in the middle of a dream in which I saw my family all standing around, and I asked my kids, “Where is Salman?” And he was standing outside on the road, outside the mosque near Mecca, and he was wearing his red shirt with his crew-cut hair. He had a pole in front of him and was looking at the ground, and he was very sad. And then I woke up, and I felt he was there, at Ground Zero.

It's very hot at Mecca in the daytime, so what they usually do is go to the mosque in the evening and stay all night long, and then they sleep in the daytime. So I went to sleep, and when I woke it was around 3:30 P.M., the call of the Adhan in the late afternoon. But what was amazing was that the dream that I had in the morning [had] continued. This time Salman had joined us, and he had a shopping cart and was going shopping. I took that as an omen that he was alive: He would come back and join us. I figured that ten hours had passed between these two dreams, and that ten meant that something might happen if I wait ten weeks, ten months, then ten seasons. But nothing happened in ten weeks, ten months, or ten seasons, and now it's the tenth year. This September will be ten years, and something has to happen this tenth year. Maybe. Maybe I will have a grandchild named Salman. Adnaan told me that he believes that Salman's going to come back as a grandchild.

When we were in Mecca we got a call saying that Congressman [Gary] Ackerman's office wanted to contact us about Salman. When we came back we met with him, and after a few conversations he was sure that there was nothing wrong with our family, and now we are very good friends. He also made us write a letter to [Attorney General John] Ashcroft, saying that Salman might be with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I said, “Why would he be with ICE? He's an American citizen.” [Ackerman] said, “But he wasn't born here.” The dividing line is whether you were born here or not. And so in November we wrote a letter at his suggestion. When he was satisfied that nothing was going on, he did not deny it: He led us to believe that Salman might have been detained. So the hope was still there that one day he would come home—a lot of hope. Even if Salman had been detained, at least he would be alive. I wanted my child back. I didn't care where he was as long as he was alive. Because a child is a child.

In the third week of January 2002, we received a form letter from the White House: Thank you for reaching out to the President, we are forwarding your inquiry to the FBI. A letter from the FBI arrived five days later which said, We only investigate criminals, so if your child is involved in a crime, then we can help you.

After all this time, two officers came to our house on March 20, 2002, at 11:30 P.M. Salmeen and I were the only two at home, as Zeshan had gone to California that day and Adnaan was then at Syracuse University Medical School. The officers said, We are confirming that your son's remains were identified through DNA at the Twin Towers. Here is the medical examiner's number; you should call them right now. My husband just fell to the floor right there, but they were adamant: Go get the phone and call the ME. I said, “You know what, officers, thank you very much. You have done your job. You can leave now.” And they did not have the decency to tell my husband, before giving this bad news, Have a seat, we want to talk to you. They just came in and blurted it out. I found that to be very crude, crude and unprofessional. Then I said, “Nothing is going to happen now. If he is dead, he is dead.”

I gave Salmeen some medication to help him sleep, and the next day we went down to the medical examiner's office. They had a big file. They said they found his lower body part, from his waist down, and thirty-four pieces. And so I said, “Why did it take you so long? When did you find it?” The ME said, “The third week of October—October 23 and October 26.” He explained that they had to match each body part with my husband's DNA, and then with my DNA. It didn't sound very convincing. I waited a long time—four months. DNA comes back in two weeks.

So I said, “Who is to say that these are the remains of my child? I want to have my own DNA testing done.” He had a file in front of him, which he pulled toward himself and said, “Go get yourself a lawyer.” He was very defensive. My mother-in-law was there and asked, “Why are you becoming so defensive? All we are asking is that you convince us that our boy is dead. And if you are trying to help [us] understand the situation, you are not doing the right thing.” He said, “You have two options, Mrs. Hamdani. You can take the remains and the death certificate and do whatever you want with it. Otherwise, it will remain with us, and whenever you are ready, we will have it. If you want to have someone do your own DNA testing, it will have to be done in front of us.”

I had to inform my family, who came to attend the funeral: Salmeen's brother, my brother, my sister from England. I knew the media would come up to my door again, once they heard Salman had been identified, so the next day Salmeen and I went to California to visit my sister. We took the remains. The funeral parlor handled it, and we went there the day before the funeral. There was a casket, but I don't know what was in it. We were told not to open it, because there was nothing in it to see. And they gave us his jeans. The jeans were his. One of the legs was missing from the knee down, and one leg was there. And one sock. But those were his jeans.

Even if he had been ten, twenty, fifty miles away, he would have gone down there. That was him. He was a bone marrow donor—that we found out after his death. I knew he gave blood twice a year at Queens College. He was very giving.

Having it confirmed that Salman's remains were found at the World Trade Center redeemed his reputation: Salman the police cadet, and Salman the EMT.

Not long after 9/11, I went to a memorial event. Someone there questioned me about Salman being a member of the NYPD cadets, saying that I was lying about my son's affiliation with the department. After that I wrote to Commissioner [Ray] Kelly, because I don't have any badges or a shield number, so there was no proof that he had been a cadet except for his paychecks. I asked him to give me a shield or something that would vouch for the fact that he was a cadet. So on the first anniversary Commissioner Kelly invited us to One Police Plaza, where they gave us a shield that said CADET on it, in Salman's honor.

In 2009 the NYPD honored Salman. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly gave us an award that says in tribute:

 

That year I got a package from the 9/11 Memorial about where Salman's name would be placed. There is a designated spot for the FDNY and NYPD members, but his name would not be placed there: It would go with the persons who worked there [at the World Trade Center]. So I wrote and called them and told them his name should go with the NYPD because he was a cadet. The gentleman I talked to said, “You know, Mrs. Hamdani, we did not get his name from the NYPD list.” I said, “Yes, I know. But if you want, I can get you information that he worked with the NYPD, and they did give him a funeral in April 2002.” I was finally told, “Oh, Mrs. Hamdani, your son did not get an award from the president. That's why he cannot go on this list.” Can you believe that? To go onto that section for the NYPD, you have to get an award of heroism from the president? [Mrs. Hamdani is here referring to the Public Safety Officer Benefits Act, first enacted in 1976, a cash award that is given to the next of kin in the event of a line-of-duty death. It is $315,764.]

We had to move forward in life; we had closure. And from that point onward we tried to go back to our normal lives. After the funeral Salmeen went back to his store. I went back to teaching. Adnaan got married in the summer of 2003. It was a nice summer, happy times. But then I got into three automobile accidents, the last of which, in December, was a head-on collision, which left me disabled and unable to go back to work. Salmeen's health worsened. He went through a series of medical tests, and the doctor told me that it was very important that he have a colonoscopy. The doctor explained that Salmeen had a complicated medical situation because he had a heart condition and was also diabetic. Salmeen refused to go for a colonoscopy, and in October 2003 had a stent put in his heart, after which he developed pneumonia. At the beginning of 2004 he went back to Pakistan because his uncle was sick. When he returned on February 19, he went straight to the hospital, and that was it: He had cancer, and it had metastasized to the brain. I believe it was because of his depression, and that 9/11 was the origin. It just wore him down, and all of it started overtaking his immune system. He was very down, and he died July 24, 2004.

That was a very bad blow, and just left a vacuum within our family. First their brother dies, and my three boys, these brothers, were very close. And then their father dies, and I have to step up into his shoes, to be a father as well as a mother. I had to make sure these boys were taken care of. When their father died Zeshan was nineteen and Adnaan was twenty-one. All of us were in a very deep depression; nobody was really functioning anymore. We wanted to move away from Bayside.

It was a very rough time in 2005 and 2006. Adnaan was at the State University of New York at Binghamton during the time of 9/11 and then he went to Syracuse University for medical school. When his father was in the hospital for five months, though, dying of cancer, Adnaan came home. After that experience, and with two and half years of medical school under his belt, he said, “I don't want to be a doctor anymore. I won't have the strength to lie to a patient, knowing that he is going to die in ten days or a couple of weeks, Mama.” So I told him to take time off, and after that he stayed at home for two and half years, doing nothing. I told him it was time to get back. He had a wife, too, having married at a very early age. At a friend's wedding in December 2002 in Pakistan, he met the girl and proposed. It wasn't arranged; parents cannot pick a partner for American children. When the girls are educated it is very difficult to make an arranged marriage anymore, especially if the girl is independent and able to support herself economically. The only reason she wants to get married is if she falls in love.

Zeshan tried to go back to college three times, but he just could not perform. So we all moved to Long Island in October 2006. It was tough for me; holidays and whatever had to be taken care of, and everything was on my shoulders. But my boys were there for me, and I thought I was there for my boys. However, I don't think I could have carried it without my siblings, my oldest sister especially. All three of my sisters are doctors. The eldest one is a psychiatrist in California. She is about ten years older and takes good care of all of us. Of course there was a lot of anger after losing one loved one in 9/11 and then another loved one to a horrible cancer. Young or old, losing someone from your core family is like a part of your body, and your soul is ripped away.