Sister of 3 fallen FDNY firefighters hosts 25th anniversary 9/11 event in Phoenix
Maureen Geraghty shares memories of her firefighter brothers and invites the Phoenix community to the Choice on 9-12 event at the New Vision Center.
PHOENIX - "Usually we grieve in private, and so my family had to grieve in public," Maureen Geraghty said.
Every year, Sept. 11 brings back a flood of memories for Maureen Geraghty.
"My husband and I owned an oil place, and I was driving to open the shop and someone called me and asked if I knew what was going on," Geraghty said.
What followed was a day she, and the rest of the world, will never forget. Maureen's three brothers were all working as firefighters in New York. Two of them lost their lives that day, and the other later died from lung cancer after working at Ground Zero for a year.
"For all of us siblings, it was a very, very sad loss and to see parents losing their child like this, that was a really big thing for me," Geraghty said.
She was there with her family a few days after the terrorist attacks and recalls watching the search and rescue teams combing through rubble, desperately trying and hoping to find survivors.
"One of the things that really left a mark with me was when they found a body, a whistle blew and everything stopped. Every single thing that was happening, and then they brought that body off the pile, and everything continued again, so it was very sacred how they were treating the people that they found," Geraghty said.
Local perspective:
So this year, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Maureen is holding an event called the "Choice on 9-12" at the New Vision Center for Spiritual Living in Phoenix, focusing on how the nation came together following the tragedy.
"I'm gonna be bringing people into the building to hear my brother's final words... and him communicating with another chief while they were working, and you'll find out where he was. That I think is pretty profound," Geraghty said.
Because even amidst unimaginable grief, there is a beacon of light.
"Even though we had all those fears, we also had compassion and love, and I was inspired to bring that out to the world really," Geraghty said.
The Source: FOX 10's Irene Snyder and Maureen Geraghty.