LAWTON, Okla_Her brother
died on 9/11, a day America
will never forget. Tuesday marks the 11th anniversary of that horrible day. The
images permanently etched in our minds. But for Kathi Ezzo-Talbott it will
always be the day she lost her little brother, a New York City firefighter.
When the towers
collapsed Peter Brennan wasn't supposed to be there. It was his day off, but a
fellow firefighter called him and asked if he would work his shift. When the
planes hit the twin towers, his sister Kathi, a Lawton resident, watching on TV just like the
rest of us, knew Peter was safe. If only he had said no, but that wasn't who Peter
Brennan was.
"The brave
men are walking or running into the buildings to save you, that was him."
Kathi went to Lawton's Fire Station #5 Tuesday
morning to see the memorial for her little brother so, in her words, she could
be with him.
"I thank
Chief Hadley for this, once I gave him the flag and he said to me where would
you like me to hang it and I said well you're building the new fire house could
you hang it there?"
"She's
been by here I think on his birthday those kinds of things. This is a place for
her some place locally for kind of remember her brother," Hadley said.
She didn't come
to mourn, but to celebrate who he was and how he lived. In the days after the
attack who could forget the makeshift posters, family members frantically
searching for loved ones, Peter also had one. He was never found.
"You want
at least a ring or something from him anything. You know there's never closure
on this, there will never be closure on this because every time you time you
put the TV on it's there."
Peter was just
29 years old, he and his wife Erica were childhood sweethearts and had a
daughter, Anna. Erica was pregnant and gave birth to Connor, a son peter would
never know, three months after 9/11. Such a tragedy, so many people lost their
lives. That awful day, some lost their will to live.
"That's
the day my father died when he found out that his son died I believe that's the
day my father gave up."
Kathi can't
remember the name of Peter's friend, the man who could have been there in the
south tower when it collapsed, instead of Peter. Who can understand the guilt
he feels, but Kathi did her best to comfort him.
"When we
went for the memorial at the firehouse in Long Island
he came up to me and he said he was so sorry and I said there was nothing to be
sorry about, it wasn't his time."
It wasn't his
time, but time ran out for New York Firefighter Peter Brennan on September 11th
at 9:59 am, we watched that morning in stunned silence. From her home in Lawton
Kathi watched with the rest of us. Even though her little brother wasn't
supposed to be working that day, she feared the worst because that's who he
was, a New York City
fireman running into a building while everybody else was running out of it.
