Thirty-six-year-old Port Authority worker Lisa Trerotola lost her life in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, leaving behind her husband and twin toddlers. For her son, Michael, who graduated from TCNJ in December 2021, the 20th anniversary changed how he sees his family, and how he remembers his mom.<\/p>\n
In a sense, <\/span>the 20th anniversary of September 11th was typical for me, in that I didn\u2019t really do much. I know other families and friends of people who died in the attacks tend to go to the memorial in New York City or to local commemorative events.<\/p>\n For me though, on that day, I need to take time to myself, and also, I need to be around people. I read the news stories about the survivors, and about the victims, but I can\u2019t get bogged down in that \u2014 I\u2019ll just get too upset. So, I spend time with people too.<\/p>\n But this year was different from any other year in that I had this sense of pride that I\u2019ve never really felt before. I think that\u2019s because I was able to talk about it with my family more openly than in the past.<\/p>\n I grew up thinking my mom had died <\/span>in a fire. My dad never really told my twin sister and me what happened the day she died, but I saw fire on the news. We never questioned it.<\/p>\n I thought my childhood was pretty normal until I started to compare notes with other kids. My sister and I weren\u2019t allowed to go on trains, buses, airplanes \u2014 especially not airplanes. We\u00a0couldn\u2019t go into big cities. We couldn\u2019t have sleepovers. We were isolated in a lot of ways. As I came of age, there was this resentment. I wished I could be like other kids. I wanted to do things that other people did.<\/p>\n The first moment we ever discussed what really happened, I believe I was 10 years old. My dad and stepmom sat us down on the bed and said, \u201cDo you remember your mom?\u201d Then they asked us some questions about her, I remember, and they explained that she died in the 9\/11 attack.<\/p>\n I was in complete shock. It was all so confusing, and kind of soul-crushing: This perception I had of my mom \u2014 that she died in a fire and we didn\u2019t really talk about it \u2014 all of a sudden, that was true, but I only knew part of the truth. Not only was this upsetting, earth shattering, and sad, there was also a sense of secrecy. I felt like I was kept from something. I felt lied to. I felt the world was lying to me.<\/p>\n I asked more questions, and my dad started talking about terrorism. I didn\u2019t understand: I didn\u2019t know the political ramifications, what terrorism meant, why terrorists would do that. In fact, I wouldn\u2019t ever really understand until I got to college.<\/p>\n My dad never talked about the events of 9\/11, and never wanted us to talk about them, either. I felt like I had to hide this thing that happened to my family, not for my sake, but for his. I know some people, especially children of the victims of 9\/11, who were really interested in questions like:\u00a0What compels terrorists to do something? How can we prevent something like this from happening in the future?\u00a0I was not at that point. I wasn\u2019t really\u00a0interested in that way, at least not yet. I knew 9\/11 was a bad thing, and I just kind of left it at that, if I\u2019m being honest. I kept myself distanced from it.<\/p>\n The secrecy made me feel like an outsider. I still struggle with that, with finding my place in a group of friends, in a community. In the back of my head, I\u2019m always telling myself: You don\u2019t really belong. There\u2019s something about you, that you\u2019re not like other people. Although I\u2019m getting better with that today.<\/p>\n Shortly before <\/span>the 20th anniversary,\u00a0NPR approached me and my sister for a story about families of victims. This is something my dad never would have agreed to. But for us, it felt like the right thing.<\/p>\n I even got to see videos of my mom \u2014 videos my sister found for the NPR reporter. Before that, I only had two memories of my mom, just quick flashes, but no memory of her voice. So hearing her speak for what felt like the first time in my life, was a really powerful moment.<\/p>\n I felt this freedom, like I could just be myself, be a part of this moment in history, and remember aspects of my mom that I never really got to see. I\u2019m not sure how my dad truly felt about our interview, though he did say he liked that we \u201csaid what we needed to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Truly, the 20th anniversary wasn\u2019t melancholic for me. It felt encouraging, empowering. I wondered what my mom would have been like if she were alive, what she would have thought of me. I reflected about how she may have reacted to my coming out as gay and if she would have helped me embrace my identity. Obviously, I can\u2019t have these questions answered, but this year, for the first time, I had space to ask them.\u00a0In future years, the 9\/11 anniversary isn\u2019t going to be about silence or distance anymore. It\u2019ll be different from now on.<\/p>\n Illustration: Sarah Jung<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twenty years after his mother\u2019s death on September 11, Michael Trerotola \u201921 shares his place in history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":11835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11834"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11880,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11834\/revisions\/11880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}