Ladder 35, Engine 40

In Memory of Lt. Victor Navarra

June 29, 1952 - December 30, 2007

Dedication:
To the firefighters of Ladder 35, Engine 40
who perished on September 11, 2001.

With Forewords by:

Harold Koplewicz, M.D.

The NYU Child Study Center

Lieutenant Victor Navarra,

Ladder Co. 35 FDNY

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Prologue
Saying good-bye is sometimes very hard. We
used to have three dogs. Two of them, Bixie and
Muddy, were twins who were very old. A couple of
years ago Bixie got sick. We couldn’t make him better
so we had to put him to sleep. My parents told me he
was going to heaven. And I was very sad.

But since I knew he would be going away

soon, I had some time to say good-bye to Bixie in my
own way. This summer his brother Muddy died
suddenly. I never got a chance to say good-bye to
Muddy. That was even harder. Our third dog,
Sammy, seemed lonely until we got a new puppy
named Buddy. But I think Sammy still misses Bixie
Chapter 1
and Muddy as much as I do.
It was a Tuesday morning in September. My
class was in the library for story time. The librarian,
My name is Juliana and I will be seven soon.
Ms. Syré, was reading to us when my classmate Jillian's
This is the story of a day that my daddy says I’ll
mom came into the library. Her mom told her she had
always remember:
to come home with her right away.

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Chapter 2
Something didn’t seem right. I started to feel a
“Hi Pumpkin. You get to come home early
little funny. I was afraid that something bad might have
today,” he said. My daddy likes to call me Pumpkin.
happened to Jillian’s father. I thought maybe he was in
“Poppy Seed is something wrong?” I asked. I like to
a car accident. A few minutes later I looked up and my
call my daddy Poppy Seed.
daddy was also standing there in the library. I was very
surprised but happy to see him.
“There’s been a very bad accident downtown
and the traffic is a mess. It’s going to be difficult to get
around the city later. So I came to pick you up!” he
said. “We’ll have walk home through the park today.
Won’t that be fun?” My school is on the east side of
Manhattan across Central Park from our apartment.

Chapter 3
I knew that my mommy worked downtown so I
became a little worried. “What happened downtown
Poppy Seed? Is mommy okay?”

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 “Mommy’s fine. But she was very near the Of all the buildings in Manhattan, the Twin
accident when it happened. She’s trying to come home Towers were my favorite. Whenever we drove back to
now. But it may take her quite some time.” the city we could see the Towers from miles away. I
knew we would be home soon once I could see the
“Daddy, can we call her?” Twin Towers. I loved seeing them at night as we drove
over the Triborough Bridge. They were really
“I haven’t been able to get through for a while. beautiful. The Empire State Building was beautiful too.
All the phones in the city are busy right now. But we’ll Sometimes at night the Empire State Building was lit in
keep trying,” he said. As Poppy Seed spoke I heard a red, white and blue lights. But there was always
lot of sirens in the background. something very special about the towers.

Chapter 4
“Poppy Seed what kind of accident was it? Was
it a car accident? Did a lot of people get hurt? Are you
sure mommy’s okay?” I had so many questions I
wanted Poppy Seed to answer.

“Well, it seems that two airplanes flew into the

Twin Towers” he said.

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Chapter 5 people walking in the park. Some were crying and it
“That sounds really bad. Did many people get seemed like almost everyone was trying to use their
hurt?” I asked. phones.

“I’m afraid so” said Poppy Seed.

“Did anyone die?”

He said that he thought so but he didn’t know

how many people. Sometimes when I get upset my
throat starts to hurt. My throat was starting to hurt me.

Poppy Seed said my throat probably hurt

because I was becoming anxious and upset about what
was going on. I asked him if he was upset too and he “Is everything going to be okay daddy? How
said yes, but his throat didn’t hurt. come people are crying?” I asked.

Chapter 6 “You don’t have to worry. Mommy and daddy

We took a cab from school over to Central Park are going to take good care of you and Isabella.
as we started our way home. Then we had to get out Nothing bad is going to happen!” Isabella is my little
and walk across to the west side. There were many sister. I call her Bella.

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 “Is Bella okay?” Just then I really wanted to be Chapter 7
home with her where I thought I would feel safe. All of sudden I was really feeling confused. I
didn’t understand why planes had flown into the Twin
“Bella’s fine. She’s waiting for you to come Towers. Poppy Seed explained that some people had
home and have lunch,” he said. done a very bad thing. I wanted to know if the people
who had done this died too. He told me that they did. I
As soon as we got home I gave Isabella a really couldn’t understand why anybody would do something
big hug. “Stop it Nana!” Isabella said. Bella calls me like this. He explained that everyone had lots of
Nana. She doesn’t always like it when I give her big questions. But there just weren’t answers right now for
hugs. But it made me feel a lot better. many of these questions. And that was also making
many people very upset.

I wanted to know if planes had flown into them,

were the Twins Towers still okay? Then Poppy Seed
told me something that made me feel terrible. The
Twin Towers had both fallen down and we couldn’t see
them anymore. I asked him how they could fall down.
He said he didn’t know and that it was hard to believe
that this had happened.

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 Soon my mommy walked in the door. Her eyes to do a lot of the things we normally did. I liked that
were very red and swollen. I think she had been crying. because once I was doing other things I stopped
She gave daddy, Bella and me really big hugs. Unlike thinking about the Twin Towers.
when I hug Bella, she never seems to complain when
she gets hugs from mommy or daddy. As the days went by I heard about many things
that were upsetting. Some things were scary. But some
things even cheered me up a little. We watched a story
Chapter 8
on TV about some people who couldn’t get back into
The next day we didn’t have school. I stayed
their apartments and had to leave their pets. But now
home and watched a little television. All they were
they had returned home and their pets were safe.
talking about on TV was the Twin Towers and a
building in Washington called the Pentagon. It had also
been hit by another plane. In some ways it was
upsetting to see some of the pictures on TV. But in
other ways it started to make me feel better to know
what was going on. And it seemed many people were
as confused as I was. I still had lots of questions.

The next day we went back to school and

everybody wanted to talk about what had happened. In
class we discussed it for a little while. Then we started

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 Soon I found out that just about every one was
Mommy and daddy kept telling us that they trying to help out. Some people were giving blood to
wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Bella or me. They the Red Cross for those who got hurt. But I was too
would take good care of us and we were safe with them. young to give blood Poppy Seed told me. Other people
That made us feel better. were raising money and writing letters and sending
food. Everybody was helping. I wanted to help too.
I found out that many children had lost
mommies or daddies. I got very upset when I heard But I couldn’t quite figure out what I should do.
about this. My throat really started to hurt. I also found This was really bothering me. I thought about baking
out that many policemen and firemen who tried to help cookies or selling lemonade but that wasn’t so easy to
also got hurt or lost when the buildings fell down. do in New York City. Maybe if I lived in the country I
People were still looking for them but it was hard to could do that. I kept trying to think of things.
find anybody because the buildings had made a really
big mess when they fell down. Chapter 10
On Friday morning I came up with an idea that I
Chapter 9 really liked. I had an old wooden duck piggy bank with
Sometimes I felt sad or like I wanted to cry. my name painted on it. It had a long neck with a plastic
And one night I did wake up crying because I had a bad chute so you could watch the coins roll down the neck
dream. Daddy and mommy let Bella and me sleep in into the duck’s tummy. I played with it all the time
their bed so we could all be together. when I was little. But now I had a new piggy bank and
the old duck piggy bank was just sitting there empty.

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 My new piggy bank was a ceramic bunny and it I looked in all the desk drawers and in the
was almost full of coins that I had saved. But I had lost closets and Poppy Seed’s coats and pants. Soon the
the key to open it. Poppy Seed pried it open with a duck was almost filled to the top. I couldn’t really
screwdriver for me. Then I put all the change into the count all the money. Mommy gave me a dollar bill that
duck—one coin at a time. There were a lot of pennies, we stuffed into the duck.
some nickels and dimes and even a few quarters. I then
went all around the house. Chapter 11
Poppy Seed had been wearing a red, white and
blue ribbon pinned to his pocket. I asked him if we
could pin the ribbon on the duck.

He got out a hammer and a small nail and

tacked the ribbon onto the duck. It looked very nice.
Then Poppy Seed took some more bills out of his
wallet. We stuffed them in the piggy bank. Now the
duck couldn’t hold any more money.

I told my mommy I wanted to give the money to

some of the firemen who had been at the Twin Towers.
Mommy said that we could bring the duck over to the
firehouse around the corner.

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 give it to him for the firemen who were lost at the Twin
Towers. He kneeled down on one knee and gave me a
big hug and thanked me. I said thank you to him too.
His eyes were red and so were mommy’s. I couldn’t
really tell if they were crying.

Chapter 12
So mommy and I went over to the firehouse.
The letters above its garage door spelled: Ladder 35,
Engine 40. I didn’t understand exactly what that
meant. There were many people standing there. There
were lots of flowers and candles and pictures of firemen
on the walls.

Mommy and I met Lieutenant Navarra of the

New York Fire Department. He was talking to a couple
of people but he came over to us when he saw me
holding my piggy bank. I told him that I wanted to

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 Just then the people that the Lieutenant had been Bella laugh. She even let me hug her without
talking to came over to me and said they worked for the complaining too much. I started to feel good. I didn’t
newspaper. They wanted to know if they could take my know that just helping out could make you feel good.
picture with Lieutenant Navarra. Mommy said it was But it does make sense when you think about it. Later
okay. All of a sudden I felt better than I had since that mommy and daddy told me they were very proud of
first moment when I saw Poppy Seed in the library. I me. I think I was even proud of myself
felt that I was helping. And that made me feel good.
The Last Chapter
So then I wondered what would happen if a lot
of other kids collected money and filled up their piggy
banks and then brought them to other firehouses and
police stations. Or baked cookies, or wrote letters or
drew pictures and brought them to the firemen and
policemen. I thought to myself maybe that might make
them feel a lot better too.

I still think about the Twin Towers. They

reminded me of my twin dogs Bixie and Muddy who I
still miss very much even though I have Sammy and
On Sunday, there was a picture of me with
Buddy. Poppy Seed says they will rebuild the Twin
Lieutenant Navarra in the Daily News. It really made

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Towers one day but it may take a long time. Until then, watching over New York Harbor and facing Ground
I’ll really miss them. Zero. She seemed to be waving good-bye to two old
friends.

Epilogue:
For the past twenty years retired firefighter
Lieutenant Vic Navarra has been the official starting
coordinator for the New York City Marathon. On the
morning of November 4th, 2001 Juliana joined
Lieutenant Navarra as his special guest on the
Verrazano Bridge for the start of the New York City
Marathon.

Moments before the race began, Juliana

accompanied Lieutenant Navarra to the starting line
where she watched 30,000 runners begin their 26-mile
journey through New York City’s five boroughs.
Unlike past Marathons, the runners could no longer
see the Twin Towers as they crossed the Verrazano
Bridge. Undaunted, the runners now gazed upon the
Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty was majestically

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