Across the Island, Remembrance

This story was reported by staff writers Samuel Bruchey, Pat Burson, Mitchell Freedman, Erik Holm, Víctor Manuel Ramos, Indrani Sen and Tomoeh Murakami Tse. It was written by Katie Thomas.

September 11, 2003

The same red sun rose to illuminate the same blue sky Thursday morning, spilling light at the same late summer angle as it had two years earlier, on Sept. 11, 2001.

But this year Denise DeAngelis was here, standing on a podium on a Point Lookout beach, and not there, in her West Hempstead living room, watching images of the second plane striking the second World Trade Center tower while the line went dead to her husband, who worked on the 91st floor.

DeAngelis believes her husband, Robert DeAngelis, a member of the Lakeview Fire Department and a West Hempstead fire commissioner, could have escaped, but chose to remain to help others.

Thursday, waves lapped the beach as she spoke at a remembrance for the lives lost in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania and spoke about resilience. "We all have shed enough tears to fill this ocean," she said. The time has come to "allow the love we shared to make us stronger," she said.

At a noonday memorial in Mineola, a court officer shed tears for three colleagues lost at Ground Zero. At a flag-lowering ceremony at Southampton Town Hall, a town official shared personal memories of the day. In Calverton, schoolkids lit candles to remember -- along with thousands of others at memorials in Babylon, North Massapequa and across Long Island Thursday -- the nearly 3,000 who perished in the Sept. 11 attacks.

On the Point Lookout beach, DeAngelis was joined by hundreds of other mourners, who closed the ceremony by casting white carnations into the ocean.

Mary Marino said she felt the presence of her late husband, Lester Marino, who worked in the trade center as an electrician for 25 years. His remains have been only partially recovered, she said.

Her husband loved the water, said Marino, of Freeport, smiling just a bit. "He's here," she said. "I think they all are here."

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On another stretch of sand several miles to the east, Donna Lyudmer marked the day at Fire Island, far from Ground Zero and her onetime home.

Lyudmer and her husband, Alex, live in the tiny Fire Island community of Dunewood now, but they had an apartment in Manhattan two years ago. Alex Lyudmer worked on West Street, adjacent to the World Trade Center.

Afterward, "we felt like dropping everything," Donna Lyudmer said Thursday. "We wanted to make our lives simpler."

She was among about 30 people who participated in an informal "Peace Walk" organized by Tara McBride of Lonelyville. Last year, McBride made an identical trip to the Fire Island Lighthouse.

"I didn't want to watch TV that day. I was so sick of the images," McBride recalled.

When 8:46 a.m. arrived -- the minute when the first plane hit the World Trade Center -- about 200 people observed a moment of silence at East Meadow's Eisenhower Park. They gathered at the edge of Salisbury Lake, where a memorial will be built to honor Nassau County residents who were killed.

"You have an empty feeling no matter what you do," Carrie Burlock, 32, of Merrick, said. "It is nice to see people coming together."

Burlock, who lost her brother, Kenneth Zelman, in the attacks, said she stayed away from Ground Zero this year, preferring the memorial service at Eisenhower Park.

David Kaplan, 39, of Glen Head, was the last to leave the memorial site, wanting to remain until 10:06 a.m., the time Flight 93 went down in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

"I wanted to honor those heroes who sabotaged the terrorists' plans," said Kaplan, wearing a shirt that honored that doomed flight with the words "United We Stand."

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Later in the day, hundreds gathered around a golden plaque erected by a Mineola Eagle Scout to honor the Sept. 11 victims. Several officials, from Village Mayor Jack Martins to Gov. George Pataki, reflected on the legacy of the attacks.

"This sense of loss," Pataki told the crowd, remains as if "that horrible event happened not two years ago, but two hours ago."

Echoing the sentiments in countless public speeches since Sept. 11, Pataki said heroes are not "someone who could hit a baseball or act well in front of a camera." Instead, it is firefighters, police, veterans and other emergency workers who are "the true heroes" of America.

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There was no need for speeches at an ecumenical service held Thursday evening at St. Ann's Episcopal Church in Sayville. The dozens of residents who were there remembered the lost through prayer, silence and song, including patriotic and devotional hymns.

During his sermon, church rector Robert Schwarz challenged churchgoers with a question: "How has your life changed? Have you changed your manner of living?"

He then called on congregants to volunteer to create a better world. "I believe we are called to action and I believe each one of us has an opportunity ... to do something that will reinforce the fabric of this community and this nation."

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.