Article: Loss of a beloved brother led to a quest for peace
Sep 11, 2011
AP
David Potorti was catching up on his sleep the Tuesday morning the planes hit the World Trade Center.
His son was only 17 months old then, and it was his wife's turn that morning to take the early shift with the infant.
About the time American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the high north face of the north tower, Potorti moved over in bed to make room for his wife and son in their Wake County home - a peaceful moment in great contrast to the fiery violence some 500 miles away.
Potorti's oldest brother Jim had gone to work that morning at Marsh & McLennan Co., a brokerage firm with offices on the 95th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. He never was seen again.
David Potorti remembers his mother doubling over in the aftermath of the tower collapse, clutching her stomach, repeating her son's name.
"I don't want anybody else to feel the pain I'm feeling right now," she said.
Potorti, literature director and arts editor at the N.C. Arts Council, has recounted that story often as he talks about his actions after9/11. For much of the past decade, he often felt like he was swimming against the tide, advocating for peace and an end to violence.
As American flags went up across the country, and the president and others began a drumbeat for war, Potorti rallied for peace.
He missed his brother.
Images and thoughts streamed through his head as he mourned his brother's death in the initial weeks and months after the attacks. There was the time his brother, seven years his senior, finally let loose of his bike after the training wheels had been removed. There was remorse that Jim would no longer be at the table for Christmas Eve feasts - the fish and pasta the family traditionally dined on before midnight Mass.
Through that blur of memories, Potorti became more and more disturbed by the push for war and violence.
His mother didn't want any family to experience the kind of loss she had, he noted. She had not narrowed her wish to "American" families.
So Potorti took his private grief public, speaking out against war.
By February 2002, he had rallied other families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks to his cause, and they formed September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization that has spent much of the past nine years advocating for peace.
The group supported an international effort to bring those responsible for the 9/11 attacks to justice in compliance with international law. Some of the members traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq to bring attention to the number of civilian deaths there.
It often was rough going for the organization in the early years. During peace rallies and marches, war-supporters shouted at them from car windows or got up in their faces questioning their views.
But 10 years have made a difference, says Potorti, who has done numerous interviews over the years for radio, TV, print media and the Web.
The questions about war that Families for Peaceful Tomorrows posed nearly a decade ago are now part of mainstream conversations, Potorti said. The media and others now question the billions of dollars funneled toward the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
"I think it's coming out of the fact that it's 10 years later," Potorti said.
Over the past year, the organization has built a website, www.911stories.org. The mission of the site is to provide readers an opportunity to ponder what paths were taken after the attacks and paths that could have been taken. It also gives families who lost loved ones in the attacks and others affected by terrorism, political violence and war a platform to share experiences.
Today, as people gather to remember the 10th anniversary of 9/11, David Potorti again will be with family, much like he was on the last day of his brother's life.
In upstate New York, where his parents live, the family will go to Mass and then feast.
"We just want to be together," Potorti said.
As many commentators and others ponder how the country has changed since the 9/11 attacks, Potorti said he is not that different at the core from the man he was then.
"I don't think I've changed. I've just become a little more public in who I am."
Potorti has one sweeping wish, though, for how his brother will be remembered.
"I would like his legacy to be a more peaceful world."
anne.blythe@newsobserver.com or 919-836-4948
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