The September 11th attack
Kama'aina seeking closure
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
"Be careful on the subways," Carol Hale told her 26-year-old daughter, who was at a New York City hotel.
It was one of those things she knew she didn't have to say, but one of those things that comes out of mouths of moms, giving advice from 5,000 miles away.
Monday, Sept. 10
Associated Press
Maile Hale was used to being away from home and smart enough to take care of herself. Kaiser High School's 1993 class valedictorian had left Hawai'i to attend Wesleyan University, where she pursued her love of the ocean in a semester at sea and graduated in 1997. She went on to become vice president of operations at a Boston financial company, and she kept family ties strong by having her older sister, Marilyce, for a roommate.
A television van at Madison Square Garden serves as a mobile bulletin board, displaying various profiles of missing people.
Tomorrow, she would be on top of the world, having breakfast in a morning conference held by British finance company Risk Waters at the prestigious Windows on the World restaurant atop the World Trade Center's north tower.
Still, in Hawai'i Kai, her mother worried.
"As all mothers do, I told her to be careful on the subways," Carol Hale said. "But who would ever have thought?"
Tuesday, Sept. 11
Who would ever have thought Carol Hale would remember the clock reading 3:26 the next morning because her oldest daughter, Marilyce, was calling with news that would shatter their lives?
Marilyce Hale was at work at Fox Sports New England. All of the televisions were on. She saw the buildings explode and the towers crumble. She knew her sister was inside.
A little while earlier, Rich Y.C. Lee had called his wife from a few floors below Maile Hale's financial conference.
Lee, a 1986 Punahou School graduate and vice president in Cantor Fitzgerald's E-Speed Internet division, had phoned to say he was being evacuated. Karen Lee, mother of one, waited for him to call back.
A floor below Lee's office, Michael Collins didn't have a chance to call his wife, fashion designer Lissa Jean Collins. His wife, a 1977 Leilehua High School graduate, was working in Paris. When she found out her 39-year-old husband had joined the list of nearly 700 missing Cantor Fitzgerald employees, there was little she could do but pray.
Back at Windows of the World, a restaurant The New York Times once described as "seeming suspended halfway between the Earth and the moon," Heather Ho had arrived early. The 32-year-old pastry chef, who grew up in Manoa, had risen in the culinary world because of her ambition and hard work. The restaurant wasn't scheduled to open until 5 p.m. But Ho, an award-winning chef, had pastries to prepare.
At 8:30 a.m. EDT, at least 70 of Windows of the World's 450 employees were on the 106th and 107th floors, pouring coffee for guests, serving a private group in another dining area, and doing prep work for the main dining room and bar.
Fifteen minutes later, a hijacked jetliner tore through the tower just below the restaurant and burst into flames. Firefighters say it's unlikely anyone above the flames made it down the stairs.
Messages piled up at Ho's Manhattan apartment from family and friends looking for her.
She didn't return the calls.
Wednesday, Sept. 12
 |
| Maile Hale's mother says she "was on the verge of doing great stuff." |
The task was enormous. It meant walking from hospital to hospital, filling out forms and standing in line at a family contact center in a converted armory.
Hong, 26, a 1994 Punahou graduate who works for Salomon Smith Barney, became one of the hordes of New Yorkers posting hastily made posters picturing the missing. Another Punahou grad who barely knew Ho joined the effort.
As the day went on, Ho's boyfriend, Daniel Roorda, still hadn't heard from her. Roorda, a New Jersey native and musician who was a bartender at Boulevard in San Francisco, where Ho worked until earlier this summer, had moved to New York with her and now had the task delivering bad news. And waiting.
Ronald "Buddy" Lee, whose brother, Rich, was missing, remained optimistic.
"We haven't given up," he said. "I just think, 'What would Rich want?' He'd want us to keep hoping."
New York City and the surrounding suburbs had about 60 hospitals Buddy Lee could check. Maybe his brother was alive in one of them.
Other families were unable to search themselves because they were too far away, and airports were still closed. Friends and strangers searched for them.
Lissa Collins, the former Hawai'i woman who worried she had become a widow, was stuck in Paris, but would come home to a yard where neighbors had tied yellow ribbons around each tree.
Maile Hale's friend from college went to the armory family center and added Maile's name to the list of missing.
Even with the American flags appearing and people extending condolences, the attack aftermath, strained transportation and gloom of a crippled city began to take its toll.
"We didn't get much done," Hong said. "Traveling the city takes a lot out of you. It's very stressful."
Thursday, Sept. 13
 |
| Heather Ho's ambition brought her to work early on the morning of Sept. 11. |
Her boyfriend had the grim task of submitting her hairbrush for DNA testing in case her body was found and could be matched through scientific evidence.
Marilyce Hale arrived in New York with East Coast relatives and friends to canvass hospitals for her sister. A New York fire marshal and friend of the family volunteered to help.
Carol Hale anxiously waited for airports to open. She knew too well the risk of hijackers, but that didn't stop her.
"I just wanted to get there," she said. "There was much more urgency in just getting there."
Friday, Sept. 14
On the day the airports resumed flights from Hawai'i, Carol and Rob Hale boarded a plane, starting a journey that would take them to Portland, Ore., to meet their youngest daughter and on to United Airlines' first flight back to Boston's Logan Airport.
Saturday, Sept. 15
The pilot gave passengers on the Hales' flight a stirring speech thanking them for flying.
United Airlines employees greeted the plane waving American flags and clapping.
But the occasion was less than joyous.
Week Two
 |
| Rich Lee phoned his family to say he was being evacuated, but never called back. |
"She's a strong, self-assured, eminently, wonderfully capable woman on the verge of doing great stuff," her mother said.
And she was gone.
The family agenda for the Monday after the attacks included going into the city to submit Maile's hairbrush, toothbrush and razor. Each of the family members had their cheeks swabbed for DNA samples.
The next day, they tried to get to Ground Zero. But they settled for Battery Park.
Bringing ti leaf, maile and tuberose lei from Kaiser High School, they found solace in the city park.
"We found a quiet place on the water," Carol Hale said, "and we put them there."
Who would ever have thought Carol Hale, the mother who worried about her daughter's safety on subways, would find herself here?
Her plight had become the plight of thousands of others.
"Maile is loved by everybody," she said. "My feeling when you go through New York, you look at your poster and you say that about your child, and you look at a thousand other posters. They're all young people and beautiful, and they're all loved."
For the families of missing with Hawai'i connections, there is comfort in knowing they are not alone.
Buddy Lee and his wife, Kimberly Miyasaki Lee, have seen the faces smiling from thousands of fliers. The signs show happy people at weddings and graduations and life events they want Rich Lee back to enjoy.
"There's a lot of pictures," Buddy Lee said. "There's a lot of candles. It's both a hard and a wonderful thing to see."
For his wife, the wonderful part is the strangers who gather in front of the posters at phone booths and street corners consoling one another or just reaching out.
Kimberly Miyasaki Lee has passed New York churches so crowded that people stand on the sidewalk just to listen. She's seen volunteers reach into their own pockets to buy food for families of the missing, and she's touched by the bags of dog food piled up as donations for the rescue dogs.
"Yesterday, I had to go to the armory," she said the other day. "I saw a girl lighting every candle that the wind had blown out. It's really sweet how people have been."
Days to come
 |
| The walls of the National Guard Armory in New York are covered with photos of people missing in the Trade Center, and messages from their loved ones encouraging hope and peace.
Associated Press |
But like other families beginning to plan memorials, she wants remembering also to be about the good times.
Saturday in Mystic, Conn., will mark the first service for her daughter.
"She loved dancing. She loved the sea. She loved to come home and swim in the ocean. She was what everybody wants their child to be," Carol Hale said. "We are celebrating her life, and what we are going to do next week is gather together with all her friends."
When the Hales return to Hawai'i, they will hold another service for their daughter.
And a week from now, Heather Ho's family and friends will gather in the Hanahau'oli School yard to remember her.
In Honolulu, Rose Lee Alterations will be missing Rose Lee while she is in New York consoling her daughter, Lissa, whose husband is among the missing.
Rose Lee will be thinking beyond their own tragedy.
This, she said, is everyone's tragedy.
She saw a television interview with Howard Lutnick, whose firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, lost 700 employees, including her son-in-law. The boss couldn't talk about the loss without crying.
He had been out of the office taking his son to the first day of kindergarten the morning of the attacks.
Rose Lee said one of the things she wants to do in New York is find Lutnick and give him a hug.
Reach Tanya Bricking at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.
