Tuesday's Children

How The Children Of 9/11 Victims Deal With Their Loss

(CBS) 
The children hold on every way they can. Because once they lost their parent to terror now they’re losing them to time.

"Sometimes I remember from when my brothers put on his cologne I remember his smell but I don’t really remember him. I don’t remember what he loo…," Bridget Fisher says.

"When you lose someone those memories tend to fade when you don’t see them all the time," Pelley remarks.

"Yeah, I don’t remember him that much, it’s sad," she acknowledges.

"After five years some of my memories are fading away and in a way it kind of scares me because I don’t want them to be gone of course," says Brielle.

Asked if she remembers her father's voice, Brielle says, "I remember his voice because my mom keeps it on his voice mail."

"Do you remember what it is?" Pelley asks.

"Yes, he gets on the phone he says ‘Hi this is Victor. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Please leave a message, thank you.’ and then he hangs up. Sometimes it bothers me cause I know he won’t get back to me, sometimes. But, I don’t know. It’s the best we can do," Brielle replies.

The kids in Costa Rica told 60 Minutes some of the worst memories don’t fade because the media won’t let them. Pelley got an earful about showing those pictures of 9/11 over and over again.

"Even when you’re just sitting down like eating dinner and watching TV, you’ll just have a nice conversation and then all the sudden you’ll see like pictures of 9/11. You can’t escape it. It’s just like everywhere you go its always like you’re always reminded of it somehow even in the littlest thing," explains Amy Gardner.

"They’re showing my dad’s death and everyone else here. It’s just really offensive. Every time I see it, it brings up so much and it actually really hurts," says Erik Abrahamson.

Erik, who lost his dad, William, may have had a harder time than many, you can almost see it in his eyes. He told 60 Minutes that hatred he felt for everyone has faded and just now, he’s putting some distance between himself and 9/11.

"This past two years or maybe, this year, I've started to really come to grip of what went on and how I was affected by it, and how much I've changed from it, actually," he says.

9/11 will always be about the sky. After an airplane killed his dad Erik was afraid, afraid of planes, afraid of flying, afraid of remembering.

Today, in the same skies of New York, Erik puts 9/11 behind him by soaring straight into it," flying a glider.

"I’m starting actually to do the take off now so I’m kind of concentrating, on not screwing up now," he remarks inside the cockpit of his glider.


"Once you are at a certain altitude they let you go and you start soaring," he says. "It’s really great if you look out the window you see everybody flying by you but you are the one that’s flying. And then you just kind of go right up and by then you are just kind of climbing and climbing it’s a really great feeling."

The passage of five years has been a transforming time. The 9/11 generation is raising the courage to face what was painful and in searching for meaning they’ve found answers in themselves.

"I don’t think I would be the same person if 9/11 didn’t happen to me," says Brielle. "I wish it – I would change it if I had the chance, of course, but, I think it has made me realize that I need to be nicer to people and maybe if I can help give back it will spread and people won’t do things like hijack airplanes and take the lives of other people."

"After 9/11 happened, I was laying with my sister – I remember telling her, 'I’m so sad. How, how, how am I gonna to make myself happy?' And I figured it out. It’s by making other people happy. Other people around you. It’s by doing good deeds for other people. That’s how—that’s what makes me happy," says Bridget.

"You know some people never figure out that secret of life," Pelley remarks.

"I’m lucky," she replies. "I’m lucky in so many ways."