Friday marks 25 years since the September 11th attacks. On that fateful day, Jack Grandcolas missed a call.
It was his wife who was on Flight 93, one of the 40 who lost their lives.
Grandcolas spoke to Channel 11 about her heroism and how that’s helped him find healing.
“Honey, are you there? Jack? Pick up, sweetie. Okay well. I just wanted to tell you I love you. We’re having a little problem on the plane. Umm, I’m totally fine. I just love you more than anything; just know that...”
That’s the voicemail Grandcolas’s pregnant wife, Lauren, left him from on board Flight 93, 25 years ago.
He told Channel 11 this week that making that call showed Lauren’s courage.
“It reminds me of how heroic she was, how calm, how composed. You know, they were in the midst of planning a counterattack, and she couldn’t divulge, you know, exactly what was going on, but when she said there’s just a little problem, if I read between the lines, it was, ‘We’re planning to take care of it.’”
For Grandcolas, getting back to Shanksville this week to see the finished memorial and walk the grounds for the first time in five years will continue his healing.
“It’ll be nice to see it again after five years of being 100% completed, because that was the goal of the family members early on was to establish and help the foundation and the park service create a meaningful place for people to go and remember and learn and reflect and not just about the day and the people on that plane, but their own lives and how they would how they would act if they were in the same situation and remember that they, the people on the flight, were no different than anyone going about their normal day that day, but yet what they did should inspire everyone to know that there is, there is, resilience and courage in our country, Grandcolas said.
Healing has not been easy.
In a book titled “Like a River to the Sea,” Grandcolas details his depression and PTSD following the loss of his wife and unborn child.
“What was haunting me was the fact that I’d never met the unborn child, and I was still holding on to what that child would have been like. So, through that therapy, she recommended that I write a letter, a diary, or a book to the unborn child, and that’s why it starts off with, ‘Dear son, dot, dot, dot, or daughter,’” Grandcolas said.
Writing the book was therapeutic and turned into a love letter to both Lauren and his new wife, Sarah.
“I thought this was now the time to be brave and publish the book; maybe it would help people, and any proceeds I get from it will go directly to help mental health support,” Grandcolas said. “My ghostwriter said he thinks it’s a love story times two because I have found redemption in the new life with my wife, Sarah.”
Grandcolas shared what he wants younger generations to know about 9/11 25 years later.
“What I’d like the younger generations to learn is about the actions on 9/11, 2001, and how this country came together, how much progress we had towards unity, towards empathy, from the whole world. We were all together united,” Grandcolas said.
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