Families, friends of 9/11 victims still feel pain

Eleven years after two planes from Boston’s Logan International Airport became weapons in a national terrorist attack on 9/11, Massachusetts residents who gathered at the State House on Tuesday morning said their pain has not been healed.

About 100 attendees stood at the steps of the State House as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray honored the victims from Massachusetts by reading their names aloud.

Red and white flowers surrounded the walkways as people arrived to witness the rise of the American flag and listen to the 206 victims’ names.

Newton resident Claudia Jacobs, 62, lost her brother, Ariel Jacobs, when he was 30 years old in the attack.

Time could not heal her pain, she said, and her grief is “always present.”

“It was like it was yesterday. What happened may not immobilize you anymore,” Jacobs said. “It’s kind of like a scab. You hit something onto it, and it’ll open up.”

Bill Moore, a Weymouth resident, has returned to the commemoration every year to play the taps during the flag ceremony for his friend, Jeff Coombs, who was on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.

“He was my best friend,” Moore said. “A great kid, a hard worker, a family man. He was definitely a good guy.”

He said 9/11 is always a sad day for him nevertheless.

“That feeling doesn’t just simply go away,” Moore said.

The outdoor air was about 60 degrees, but to many, the weather seemed to replicate the day of 9/11 too closely.

“Every year, [9/11] always seems like a regular day, just like today, where the weather is the same — beautiful,” said Lisa Shore, a Boston resident who was in the Hub on 9/11. “It doesn’t feel any different.”

On 9/11, Shore was on the 15th floor of the Hancock Tower in Boston when authorities ordered that she and her coworkers evacuate, she said.

After everyone had exited the building, she said, there was news that two children were locked in an office on the 59th floor after the building’s power had been shut off.

“No one wanted to be in the building,” she said. “And no one wanted to get them.”

Shore said she ran to the top and released the kids.

“And it’s just scary, you know, because everybody’s afraid [for] their personal safety, but I feel as if you have to think of others, too,” she said. “Especially at a time like this.”

She said people everywhere should remember the anniversary.

Other attendees came to support those who have been affected by 9/11.

Nancy Trautman and her husband, both Lexington residents, came to support Teresa Mathai, head coordinator of the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund and their close friend.

Trautman said she and her husband have been friends with Mathai since before 9/11, when Mathai’s husband passed away.

“At that time, I helped her a lot with the kids,” Trautman said. “She had kids that were in second and fourth grade and our children were friends, so we spent a lot of time with the kids and with her. She’s really a great person and her husband was too.”

Mathai, a Boston resident, said she felt the need to “rally our own community with awareness.”

She said she created her own organization with the help of fundraisers and family to hold “events for [the] families” and “organize the annual commemoration.”

The Massachusetts 9/11 Fund holds a ceremony every year to celebrate and remember the 206 Massachusetts residents who fell victim to the 9/11 attacks.

Ever since the 2002 ceremony, families have helped Mathai to raise money and create an organization that continuously raises money, she said.

The ceremony will forever hold an annual commemoration, she said.

Mathai, however, said the grief is gradually diminishing.

“He was just on a routine day at work, my husband. He was a great man,” she said. “But I feel like I can be stronger now, especially establishing these funds and ceremonies for the other families.”