By Greg Szymanski

The morning began with the highest of highs and ended with the lowest of lows. It had all the makings of a perfect September day but turned quickly into one ordered up by the devil as if a black curtain had been thrown over the entire world.

On the morning of 9/11, Donna Marsh O’Connor started out to Toronto with high expectations, hoping her husband Robert’s film, Buffalo Soldiers, would fair well in the prestigious film festival held there every year.

It ended with the deepest feelings of despair and desperation and a life or death race back to New York City after hearing about 9/11, knowing her 29-year-old daughter, Vanessa, who was five months pregnant, was working on one of the top floors in the South Tower.

Many stories of horror and tragedy have been told about 9/11, but this one somehow is a bit different. It’s different because, four years after the fact, it places the entire picture of 9/11, both the tragedy and political ramifications into proper prospective from the eyes – the thoughtful and intelligent eyes - of a grieving mother who only wanted justice from the very beginning, something she claims she never has gotten.

But before delving into politics and social injustice, this is the type of compelling story that needs to be explored from the human side. It’s the type of heart-wrenching, sad story that can’t be easily wrapped up in a neat, little package with all the answers plainly visible on the cover.

In fact, it’s the type of story that leaves an eternity of unanswered questions, perplexing questions like why good people die young and why some people like Marsh-O’Connor are given an extra-large dose of sadness and grief, given enough turmoil and disappointment to fill up the lives of a million people combined.

But in between the unanswered questions and mysteries of life, this is a story about the greatest human tragedy of all, the story of a loving mother losing a daughter and, in the process, upsetting the entire balance of nature and progression of life.

It upsets the entire balance because children aren’t supposed to die first and parents just aren’t supposed to outlive their children. But when it happens, when the young are ripped away for no good reason, it’s like turning the entire planet upside down and driving a stake through its core and, at the same time, driving it through the mother’s heart as she watches her child die before her very eyes.

And Marsh-O’Connor knows what it’s like to have that eternal stake driven through her heart, knows how excruciatingly long the pain can last, realizing it may last forever and perhaps even longer than that.

She knows all to well how the pain started on the black and horrid morning of 9/11when she first collapsed on the roadside after frantically calling from a phone booth on her way back to New York City, trying desperately to talk with her daughter.

She knows what it’s like to rush as close as she could get to the rubble at Ground Zero, staring endlessly into what was nothing more than a bottomless pit of smoke and debris, wondering if her daughter was dead or alive.

She knows what it’s like to live on pins and needles for 13 long days, holding on tight to every last glimmer of hope that her daughter, Vanessa, would somehow miraculously walk through the door, giving her a big kiss and a hug instead of forever remaining just a memory.

And she knows what it’s like when that last glimmer of hope faded out on September 24 when she was told Vanessa died fleeing the South Tower, being one of only 289 bodies found in tact at Ground Zero out of the 3,000 who perished.

“For months after she was killed, I would call her cell phone just to listen to her voice on the answering machine,” said Marsh-O’Connor from her home in Syracuse after spending the weekend in New York for the fourth 9/11 anniversary ceremony held every year at Ground Zero.

“Her face is like a screensaver in my mind. And on that horrid 9/11 morning I physically felt like I was going to explode. I called my son, James, who was 14, and he said: ‘Mom, Vanessa!’ The whole thing is surreal. My husband broke into tears.

“Vanessa loved the towers and she knew I hated them. The last time we talked we made up for an argument we had and then I remember she said ‘I love you’ and then we decided to go away for a few weekend trips. That never happened.

“Then on July 25, this year, Vanessa’s husband Timothy died. He starting drinking after 9/11 and never stopped. He loved her very much and never was the same after she died. I think he died for Vanessa.”

So, four years later, the 9/11 death toll increases by one as Timothy’s name won’t be added to the official victim’s list, but nonetheless calls shocking attention to the magnitude of the pain and suffering going on within all the families who suffered losses at Ground Zero.

It also calls attention to the many other social, political and economic problems surrounding the aftermath of 9/11, problems Marsh-O’Connor said need immediate attention since the victims and families deserve the truth and nothing but the truth.

Last Sunday on the fourth anniversary of 9/11, Marsh-O’Connor at a 9/11 Truth Movement rally near the United Nations made an impassioned plea to more than 300 Bush protestors, saying it was time for both Bush and Cheney to be removed from office.

She claimed the 9/11 investigation mounted by the government was a sham, adding that four years later there still exists a media blackout and little support among the American people to get at the truth.

“Look in the crowd,” she said at the rally. “We need more suits out there. We simply need more awareness if we ever want to get anywhere.”

Back at home in Syracuse, she added more depth to her emotional statements made at the rally:

“I swear to God I don’t know if we will ever get these guys. I hold Bush and Cheney responsible 9/11 and for blocking any type of meaningful investigation. I would like to see the truth come out in my lifetime, but I just don’t know.

“But Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove, at his demonic best, have blocked all chance at getting at the truth. When a crime is committed, you look to who benefits for motive. Bush and Cheney had the most to benefit. All I ever wanted was the questions to be answered. Where was NORAD? Eighteen minutes is a lifetime in air traffic control and  if they would have acted, my daughter would be alive today.”

Besides the mystery surrounding the disappearance of NORAD, Marsh-O’Connor provided a litany of unanswered questions not addressed by anyone in government, including the 9/11 Commission.

Some of the questions she personally wanted answered included why were the Saudis allowed to leave the country right after 9/11 when all other flights were cancelled? Others included why were those in the South Tower not told to evacuate right after the North Tower was hit and why, in general, does Bush think he has the right to refuse answering questions about the discrepancies in the official government story when millions in America don’t believe it?

“When my daughter was running for her life, why was George W. Bush reading to second graders?” she asked, adding Bush, the person, is even more frightening than Bush the politician. “I have a knack at reading people and Bush is a nasty little brat.

“He is belligerent, narcissistic and insecure. His entire life is spent covering up and it is painful to watch him talk with his constant pausing and groping for words and sentences.”

Saying that Bush and his neo-con band of thugs are dangerous, Marsh-O’Connor puts nothing past this gang of criminals in the White House, saying she is prepared to speak out anytime, anyplace or anywhere in order to wake-up America  to the reality that the enemy of America lies within.

“Bush scares me,” she added, “because he and his friends are willing to do anything to get what they want. We have to start preparing ourselves for a biological attack. There are just so many things he has done since 9/11. Why did he take away bankruptcy from the people? Why is there going to be higher minimum payments on credit cards in the near future?”

Giving a lesson in the American psyche and also asking a tough question to the American people, she added:

“What we say about ourselves is different than what we see. If we allow Bush to get away with everything what do we have left? You tell me what freedom means?”

Concerning Hurricane Katrina, she said lessons from 9/11 haven’t been learned and the ‘Bush MO,’ as she likes to call it, is being repeated all over again in New Orleans.

 “We see the same Bush pattern in New Orleans,” she said, referring to the fact that the Bush administration appears to want to maximize pain and suffering instead of minimizing it.

“When are people finally going to get it?”

  Greg on the Radio.

Greg Szymanski

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