Annual C.W. Post boat trip helps 9/11 victims’ families

September 3, 2009 By PERVAIZ SHALLWANI. Special to Newsday

 

Seven-year-old James Carson of Massapequa Park has only begun to understand what happened to his father on 9/11.

 

The boy, who was not yet born when his father, James, a network administrator working in Tower One, was killed in the World Trade Center attacks that morning, has asked if the family could get a second car so his father would come home or if the family could visit heaven.

 

“This year, he doesn’t want to talk about it,” said his mother, Debbie Carson. “He says he’s very sad. You can see the difference. Now he’s in school and plays sports and he sees everybody has a daddy and he doesn’t.”

 

The new hurdle the Carsons face is one that was prevalent Thursday night among the mothers of those not yet born or too young to understand the attacks, during the fourth annual boat trip on the Hudson River held by C.W. Post 9/11 Families Center at Long Island University in Brookville.

 

“It’s around 7 and 8 years of age that children go through a stage where they begin to understand logic,” said Thomas Demaria, the founder and director of the center.

 

“It’s an age of curiosity. They still don’t know how to understand big concepts. They won’t understand a concept like terrorism, but they would understand the concept of people being angry and taking over planes and hitting towers,” he said. “They will understand that detail.”

 

The trip is a joint effort between the center and the FDNY for families who have found it hard to return to the place where they lost loved ones.

 

During the 90-minute cruise on a brisk, clear night on the Hudson River, five psychologists and several doctoral psychology students from the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University offered support to 78 family members of people who died in the attacks.

 

As the sun set, they cruised down the Hudson past the Statue of Liberty and then stopped offshore in view of the World Trade Center site. There, families one-by-one dropped personal memorial wishes written on biodegradable paper and attached to shells.

 

There were about 20 children among the families, many of whom didn’t know each other before the attacks but have come together in their wake.