Paul Arpaia
It has been almost ten years since that awful day in September. I have never been able to talk about that day and the months afterwards with the equanimity to convey the horror, loss and sadness I have felt. Even now, I still fear that I cannot accomplish what I want to set out to do.
To say that my cousin Kathy Mazza was one of the important people in my life seems hollow when I think of all that she meant and continues to mean to me. Even before September 11, 2001 Kathy was a remarkable person, though some were not always so sympathetic about her remarkableness.
Kathy was six years my senior, and I adored her. She was not the Long Island princess that a mother might hope for. No, she was more like one of those women celebrated in song by Long Island native Billy Joel. An operating nurse for as long as I could remember, Kathy had seen the consequences of abuse, violence, accidents and hate written on the bodies that came through the emergency operating room. Her way of dealing with the human tragedy was to be bold and brash, even loud and off-color. Her bawdiness hid a gentle, caring and sweet soul.
I knew differently. As a child with a disability and a deformed neck and shoulder owing to a rare form of spina bifida and a rare genetic disorder called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, I was mocked by classmates and many of my cousins. On visits to my aunt and uncle's, Kathy became my savior. She taught me to laugh off the taunts and to realize that even those considered to be the most popular and perfect were like me in that they too had “disabilities" even if they were not always apparent to the naked eye. She made me realize I was not the monster my cousins and classmates made me out to be and that I could aspire to a what is considered a normal life. She made me recognize that I had talents that I could develop which would become the way people would come to know me once they got beyond physical appearances. She made me understand that, in life, one does not need to reveal one’s accomplishments to authority figures in order to do good.
She loved me and I loved her. Throughout my teen, college and post-graduate years, I counted on her guidance, her broad shoulders and her indomitable will to survive. Not only did she support me emotionally, she sought out doctors who could help me understand my disability better and help me deal with the chronic pain that had become a part of my life. Although I did not have medical insurance during many of these years, she sought out medical colleagues who would help me as a favor to her.
From time to time I would catch glimpses of her work with other people - her friends, other relatives and strangers - whom she cared for. When I learned that, after becoming a Port Authority policewoman, she was doing the same for homeless people she encountered on the street, I was hardly surprised. Kathy's heart -- though flawed by a whole in it -- was healthier than most.
Kathy had challenged me, an impressionable child, to expand my vision. She shared a love for cooking (and eating) and she had taught me to expand my interest in food beyond the Sicilian and Neapolitan cuisine of my extended family. She showed me how to make bagels from scratch and to appreciate Kosher food and New York Jewish cuisine. I'll never forget the first time she brought me, as a young child of twelve, to my first Chinese restaurant in Chinatown or my first sushi restaurant. Despite my protestations that I would never like Chinese food or would never eat raw fish, she encouraged me to try something new. I quickly found out how closed-minded I had been. She taught me that if I wanted to live, truly live, I needed to be willing to accept differences that might, at first encounter, cause me to recoil.
She took me into her confidence while I was still an adolescent and introduced me to her boyfriends, many of whom were as wild as she was. She taught me to accept them and to see the good in them even if they were so different from me, a quiet boy who preferred reading books and excelling at school. When she dated an Asian boyfriend, she taught me there was nothing wrong with dating outside one's so-called race -- and this at a time when so-called mixed couples were still unacceptable to many.
Her move to the Port Authority police force did not surprise me. She had told me she was changing professions because nursing had become too stressful. I had seen the toll operating nursing had taken on her and I understood her choice. Kathy excelled at her new job as she had in the old. She took me on my first trip to the World Trade Towers. I never tired afterwards of going up to the observation deck with her. She loved the Port Authority police force, and we were all so proud of her when she attained the rank of captain and was appointed the commander of the Port Authority Police Academy. Kathy and I had commiserated about studying, papers and professors while she earned her own bachelor's degree as a non-traditional older student. All that hard work had paid off. Now, she was at a point when she would oversee the education of others. I chortled when she told me how the men at the academy first tried to tease her about the lack of adequate changing facilities for women. "If I see something I've never seen before, I'll blow it off with my revolver!" she had quipped to them. That's all it took to put the "boys" in their place!
At that time, I had recently taken an administrative job at the City University of New York, while working on my doctorate at Georgetown University, and I had been working on a program with the New York Police Department aimed at helping the police improve their interactions with immigrant communities who did not speak English. Kathy gave me wonderful advice. When she told me she wanted to revise the Port Authority Academy, I jumped at her request to pore over police manuals and talk about pedagogy with her. Kathy had come a long, long way since those days when we raced around Long Island in her red Mustang with "Super Pickle" swinging wildly from the rearview mirror.
Kathy had remained an active nurse after becoming a police officer. She kept up her nursing license and brought health issues to her police work. She encouraged the placement of defibrillators in bus terminals, train stations and airports, thus saving lives and earning the New York City Basic Life Support Provider of the Year Award in 1989.
On that weekend in Montauk before September 11, I proudly took her for a drive in the first car I ever owned -- one my wife and I had recently purchased. We talked about our future and made plans to meet the following weekend. That glorious weekend was the last time I would have with Kathy in this life. The night of that horrible event, I had a dream. I'm not one to believe in the portents of dreams. But, I still shudder when I think about how Kathy appeared to me in a dream and told me not to worry about her. She told me she had died trying to help others and I should dedicate my life to doing the same. The next morning I told my wife the dream, but we reassured ourselves that Kathy was alive and still on vacation. Unbeknownst to us, Kathy had decided to return to work. She had gone to the World Trade Center. When the mayor and his crisis team decided to abandon their "bunker" in the Center, she, a captain in the Port Authority, had decided to remain at the site to serve as a nurse tending to those in need of medical attention. As I found out months later, she was crushed to death along with her brother officers, carrying a person on a stretcher down a flight of stairs in the North Tower.
I find it difficult to share the experience of loss and grief on September 11 and the days, weeks and months afterwards. I do not think it productive. To do so would be to shift the attention away from Kathy and the others who died and the lessons they imparted on us through their lives. Indeed, it was by focusing on Kathy’s love for others during her life that I began to work my way through my own trauma and to re-dedicate my life to bringing a message of peace and hope to anyone who will listen. Peaceful Tomorrows helps me live many of the lessons Kathy taught me during our all too brief time together. I hope to show others that, even though we human beings do not share the same attributes with others, difference is a quality we all have in common as human beings. I want to make the pain I feel more capable of embracing the pain of others. As a university professor, I want to show my students the same type of care, understanding and concern that Kathy showed for people, like me, whom she helped throughout her life. During the past two years, I have actively sought at my university to bring peace and understanding to the lives of student-veterans, students in the active or reserve armed forces, and their loved ones. I want to help end the cycle of violence that began when Kathy and so many others died.
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