On 9/11, an Australian photographer was working in NYC. He’d been covering the US Open.
He was planning on taking the day off, but he was called after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. He was arriving in the area when the 2nd tower collapsed.
He spent the rest of the day documenting the attack and its aftermath. Many of his photos that day were of NYFD personnel involved in rescue operations.
Near the end of the day, something caught his eye. It was a dusty photograph of a mother and her toddler daughter amid the rubble.
Leaving it in place, he blew the dust from that photo. He then took a photo of the photo amid the rubble.
He then took the photo with him and turned it in to authorities. Its precise location today is not known. It may be among the items catalogued that day, or it may have been lost.
His photo of that photo ran in the New York Post the following day. It ran on page 12. He didn’t know the people in the photo.
The photographer was affected by 9/11. He returned from Australia for the 10th Anniversary.
He met many of the firefighters he’d photographed during that 10th Anniversary visit. He got to know some of them, and their stories.
But he still didn’t know anything about the lady and toddler in the photo from the rubble.
He kept looking.
. . .
It turns out that the lady and her husband were out-of-town on vacation on 9/11. She indeed worked in the North Tower, and had lost friends. But they were safe – as was their daughter.
They heard about the photo in the Post. It caused many of their friends to attempt to contact them.
They too wondered about the photographer who’d taken the Post photo. But due to the confusion surround the events of 9/11, they were unable to determine who he was.
They later moved away from NYC. But a copy of that Post photo stayed with them. It served to remind them that life is precious, and that the “small stuff” is exactly that – small, and not really important.
Each year, the lady used the Post photo on Facebook. It was her way of giving thanks for life, as well as a tribute to lost friends.
And she still wanted to know who’d taken that photo of her photo.
. . .
The photographer continued to search. And eventually, fate was kind. He found the picture the lady had posted – his picture.
He also found out she’d been looking for him, and that she and her family wanted to meet him.
The photographer traveled from Australia to Florida, where the lady and her family now live. They met in person earlier this year.
Afterwards, the photographer and the lady’s family traveled to NYC, and visited the 9/11 memorial.
. . .
Fox News has a story today giving more details than my bare-bones account above. IMO, it’s certainly worth a read.
If you read it, though, you might want to have a tissue handy. There’s a chance you might need one.
