We All Fall Down: The True Story of the 9/11 Surfer (33 page)

They were no longer fighting and were instead listening to the radio right along with him.

“Osama Bin Laden is the man who tried to kill Mr. Pasquale. Oh wow. I bet Louise is thrilled! Why don’t we stop over at their house after school?”

A few moments later, they passed Pasquale and Louise’s house.

“Daddy, look! Mrs. Louise is hanging something on the house!”

Sam turned his head and, sure enough, saw Louise, standing high up on her deck, struggling to hang something from it. She wrestled with it for a few seconds, and then he saw a giant American flag drop. It hung gloriously from the wooden deck, really standing out against the white siding. Sam stopped the car in front of the house and honked the horn. “Hey, Louise!”

She waved back at him.

“I guess you heard, huh?”

“I heard this morning, Sam!”

“Me too! I woke up, and it was all over the news. When I saw you were trying to hang that, I just had to stop. What a great tribute!”

“Thank you, Sam! Isn’t this yours?” she asked, pointing to the huge 10’x8’ Stars and Stripes. “I just...I had to do something, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, I definitely get it! But, Louise, there is just one problem.”

“What?”

“You hung it backward!”

“I did?” Louise walked down the steps and into the yard to take a look at Old Glory. “You’re right! I did! Is that a bad thing?”

“Well, it’s sort of known as a sign of disrespect. Tell you what. Let me get the girls off to school, and I’ll come back and help you get that thing straightened out!”

“Really? Thank you, Sam. That would be a great help!”

“No problem. Be back in a few.”

Sam drove on and immediately began forming a plan. He dropped his girls off at school and started dialing his cell phone.

~ ♦ ~

Chris Edelen sat at his kitchen table, sipping his morning coffee and reading
The New York Times
. The front page read:
“BIN LADEN KILLED BY U.S. FORCES IN PAKISTAN, OBAMA SAYS, DECLARING JUSTICE HAS BEEN DONE.”
Chris was eagerly reading the story inside, his eyes scanning each line rapidly as he tried to take in the information.

Ring...ring...ring...

“Hello?” Chris answered.

“Hey, Chris.”

“Yeah? What’s up, Sam?”

“What are you doing right now? I assume you’ve heard the news.”

“Yeah. I was just reading about it in
The Times
.” Chris told him all about the headline and the article.

“My God, man. I can’t believe it!” Sam paused for a moment before going on. “Hey, I just passed the Buzzelli place.”

“Wow. How are
they
?” Chris asked.

“Well, Louise seems to be great. She was hanging a flag from their balcony.”

“That’s great!”

“It is, but that’s actually why I’m calling. I need your help.”

“What can I do for you?” Chris asked.

“Well, I kind of have this plan…”

Chris could not help but feel excited when Sam filled him in.

“We’re gonna need some rope, a couple ladders, and as many flags as we can manage...”

~ ♦ ~

The sun was just peeking out from behind the trees that lined Rivervale Road. Louise stood, rooted to her spot, on her tiptoes, just barely able to keep herself from sprinting the route she knew he would take home. She could not wait to see him, and neither could the dozens of people waiting with her.

“Mrs. Louise?”

She felt a hand tugging on her jeans and looked down and saw Sam’s little girl gazing up at her. “Hey, Lauren!” Louise ceased watching for just a moment and bent down to talk to her, “What have you got there?”

“Just some flowers,” Lauren said, holding up a bouquet of pretty blossoms. “I picked them for Mr. Pasquale. Do you think he will like them?”

“Like them? Oh, Lauren, he’s going to
love
them. They are beautiful!” Louise smiled and gave the little girl a hug. Then, Louise stood up and took a deep breath. She looked around her yard, awash in red, white, and blue, and could not help but smile. As she took it all in, she noticed Chris talking to his ten-year-old daughter, Alex.

“I am confused.”

“Are you? About what?”

“Well...” Alex searched for the words to the question she wanted to ask. “I was just wondering, why are we celebrating someone dying?”

“Oh no! We are not doing
that
,” Chris said, putting his hand on his daughter’s shoulder and looking her right in the eyes.

Louise watched them and it dawned on her how it must have seemed to a young child or someone else who did not know the story of her husband’s survival. It was easy for her to see how it might seem to someone on the outside looking in, to someone who did not understand their story.
It might just look a bit odd that someone would celebrate a death—even if that death happened to a terrorist.

“Honey, we are celebrating life!” Chris told her. “We are celebrating Pasquale’s life and his survival. The man who tried to kill him is dead, but Pasquale is still alive!”

“Mommy, look!”

Louise turned to see Mia pointing to the end of the road.

“Daddy is home!” Hope exclaimed, and both girls ran toward the driveway. They could not wait to leap into his arms and give their father a huge hug.

Louise heard Brittany barking as Pasquale pulled into the driveway and watched as the little terrier ran and hopped into the car as soon as Pasquale opened the door. It was only fitting that the first one to greet him when he came home on September 11, 2001, would be the first one to greet him when he came home on this victorious day as well.

Louise wiped a tear from her eye as she made her way toward her husband: a man who had fallen down, had been knocked over time and time again, only to stand back up again; an all-around good guy; a wonderful friend, son, husband, and father...and a survivor in every sense of the word.

~ ♦ ~

I don’t remember it
ever
taking this long to get home!
Pasquale thought as he sat in traffic on his way home from work. He always looked forward to the moment he turned the corner and could see his house. As he neared home, his anticipation grew; his loving wife and his two beautiful daughters awaited him there, and the only thing keeping him from them was distance.

Damn traffic. Today of all days,
he thought. He caught his reflection in the rearview mirror and noticed how angry he looked.

What do I have to be angry about? How can I let a little traffic jam get me down when I have so much to be thankful for in my life?

It was true, for the last few years had been very good to Pasquale Buzzelli. After watching his daughter fall down over and over again, only to get back up every time, he felt a profound sadness; sadness for the little children who’d lost so much at such a young age. He also felt fear. A deep, dark terror lurked in his what-if thoughts, pondering that little Hope could have (and by all logical thought, should have) been one of those children. It horrified Pasquale to think he was so close to losing the chance to watch Hope grow up.

He dwelled on those thoughts for a while. He thought of Hope growing up and experiencing the highs and lows of life without her father there to guide her and console her when she came to the inevitable valleys that every human experiences. He thought about how he would have never had the chance to celebrate the good times with her, big and small: watching her play dolls with her friends; seeing her fall off her bike and scrape her knee, only to get back up and pedal faster; teaching her to drive; tolerating her first crush and helping her through when that first crush would break her heart; seeing her turn her tassel at her high school graduation; driving her to her first college dorm room, with all of her things loaded in the car; walking her down the aisle on her wedding day; the look on her face when she announces that her parents are going to become grandparents; kissing his grandkids and smelling their hair and teaching them how to ride a bike. Pasquale Buzzelli was within milliseconds, inches of missing all of that, and it was an absolute miracle that he had been and would be there to experience it all.

It was then that it clicked for Pasquale. He was overcome with grief at even the thought of missing even a second of his daughter’s life, yet there he was, living life in a haze of sadness and regret. He vowed on that day that he would no longer live in the shadow of those crumbling Towers. He would live and live well, a tribute to those who hadn’t been given that chance.

The road to recovery was not an easy one. It was long and filled with many ups and downs. The more time he spent not talking about 9/11, the less he was asked to do so. It was a tremendous relief for him to be able to go back to normal life, to not have everyone who met him immediately label him a “survivor,” “a miracle,” or “the luckiest man alive.” As time went on, he was able to get back to being the man he had always wanted to be, the man his father had taught him to be.

As time went by and Pasquale realized that he was actually able to just live a normal, happy life, as he realized he could have some semblance of control over his life, he and Louise decided they wanted to have another baby. They went through the process of in vitro fertilization for a second time, and it worked once again. On May 21, 2005, Louise gave birth to their second daughter, Mia Elizabeth Buzzelli.

As amazing as it was being a father for the first time, Pasquale enjoyed it even more the second time around. Because of his battle with PTSD, he had not been the father he’d wanted to be to Hope when she was very little, but thanks to the years of therapy and the continuous support of his family, he had been able to overcome—or at least understand and deal with—the post-traumatic stress and the survivor’s guilt that had been making his life almost unbearable for so long. He was finally well enough again and able to enjoy just being a father without all of the outside forces stealing his mind away from the things that mattered most—his wife and kids.

Hope had been a very quiet as a baby who rarely cried; Mia was the opposite. She cried often as a baby, but rather than seeing it as an annoyance, Pasquale used it as an opportunity to bond with his baby girl. He held her in his arms every night, until her cries grew to soft whimpers, and then she quieted down and got comfortable, snuggling in her daddy’s strong and loving arms.

As Mia grew a little older, Louise and Pasquale took turns putting her to bed. Pasquale relished the nights when it was his turn. He sat with her in his arms in the green gliding chair in her room. She asked him to read her the same book every night,
Goodnight Moon,
and rock her to sleep. Each and every time he read it to her, he let her find the little mouse in the picture, and every time she pointed her little finger at that little mouse, Pasquale remembered how blessed he was to have the opportunity to read a bedtime story to his daughter.

Once Mia finally did fall asleep, Pasquale would get up quietly and place her in her bed. She would wake up every time, but he always said, “Goodnight, Mia. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” When he said those words, his little one would blow him kisses, insisting that he catch every one of them and put them on his cheek, then blow his own back to her; she would catch his as well and put them on her own little cheek for safekeeping. Then, Daddy would have to back slowly out of her room. That became their ritual, and Pasquale cherished it every night; no matter how many hundreds of kisses they exchanged through the air, it never grew old for the man who knew what it meant to really appreciate his chance to be a father.

Even though things were much better for Pasquale and Louise, Pasquale was not able to find the tools to make a full recovery until the summer of 2006, when he had the opportunity to work with his own father again, much like he had done as a teen so many years before. Pasquale and Louise decided to buy a beach house, a true fixer-upper that would require full renovation. They wanted to continue to make special family memories with their children and thought the beach would be the perfect place to do it. Pasquale wanted to make every repair on the house himself, and he asked his father to help him.

Much like everything worth having in life, that beach house needed a lot of hard work before it would be in livable condition. Pasquale and Ugo spent countless hours putting in a new kitchen, refurbishing the living room, fixing the roof, painting, and various other odd jobs to get the house ready to be the Buzzellis’ home away from home. As they worked, Pasquale thought back on his summers as a young man, working construction with his father. It reminded him of how special Ugo was to him.

Ugo had always been there to help him and show him how to do whatever needed to be done. Ugo had taught Pasquale how to work hard, because that is what men do. Ugo knew that instilling that work ethic in Pasquale would set him up to be a success in whatever field he chose. Pasquale thought about how Ugo was always there to guide him, no matter what the circumstance. It was then that Pasquale realized just what he needed to be for his own children.