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Pained New Yorkers For a week, 19-year-old Ellen Romito got to act like a teenager again. And after nearly a year of unimaginable grief, her mother is grateful to the people of Hawaii for providing that "blessed relief."
find ‘blessed relief’
in Hawaii
Their trip to the isles
is an experience filled
with healing alohaBy Christine Donnelly
cdonnelly@starbulletin.com"I wanted her to have fun and enjoy herself. And she did. So I say thank you for that. What could possibly happen in this kid's life that she can't handle? She's much older than her years," said Jody Romito, 47, of Washington Township, NJ.
The patriarch of the Romito family, James Romito, 51, was killed rescuing people from the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center Sept. 11. He was last seen shortly before the first tower collapsed, carrying a helpless person on his back down the stairs from the 47th floor.
Romito was one of four chiefs in the Police Department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A nearly 30-year veteran, he was one of 37 Port Authority police officers killed that day. The loss was a crushing blow in an already horrible year. Last February, the Romitos' son, Robert, a 20-year-old U.S. Marine, died in a car accident.
"If you had told me a year ago that this was going to happen, I would have said I can't take it, I'll lay down and die. But I haven't. You get an inner strength that you never knew you had," said Jody Romito, a clinical social worker for Bergen County, NJ.
The mother and daughter are among the 600 New York rescue workers and family members of those killed Sept. 11 invited to Hawaii by for vacations donated by local airlines and numerous hotels and tourist attractions. They arrived Dec. 3 and depart tomorrow.
The week -- filled with sightseeing with local families, snorkeling trips, sunset cruises, surfing lessons and tanning sessions on Waikiki beach -- is to be capped tonight with a luau for the whole group. There also were many somber moments, as the New Yorkers visited memorials to those killed Dec. 7, 1941, and bonded with elderly military veterans here to mark the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It was tough Dec. 7 for Jody Romito to help lay a wreath at the National Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. The many young Marines at the ceremony reminded her of her son, and seeing Pearl Harbor survivors with their wives reminded her how she would share no golden years with her husband. Friday would have been their 27th wedding anniversary.
"You can't try to make sense out of it. You just go forward. I have my daughter and she has me," said Romito, adding that the vacation allowed them to bond with others facing similar grief.
"I've just spent a lot of time sitting around the pool talking to people, about our husbands, or whoever we lost. I've seen a connection here among the kids who lost parents."
Several New Yorkers said that after visiting the Arizona Memorial and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl they would return to New York with renewed resolve to advocate for a proper memorial for the more than 3,000 people who died at Ground Zero.
The Arizona Memorial spans the sunken wreck of the USS Arizona, where the remains of more than 900 sailors are entombed, in the middle of an active Navy Base at Pearl Harbor. Punchbowl comprises 116 acres of prime Honolulu hillside, with panoramic ocean views.
Maureen and Alexander Santora of Long Island City, NY, who lost their 23-year-old son Christopher, said they would be "very vocal" when they return to New York that a significant memorial replace what used to be the World Trade Center.
Christopher Santora, a firefighter with Engine 54 in midtown Manhattan who had earned perfect scores on both the physical exam and written test it took to join the department, was one of 343 firefighters killed after they went in to rescue people from the carnage.
"You look at these beautiful, peaceful memorials here and it's even more disturbing that they would even consider rebuilding on the rubble" at Ground Zero, said Alexander Santora, 61, a retired deputy chief from the New York Fire Department.
Laurie Quinn, 29, of Middletown, NJ, said the vacation gave her and her parents a chance to relax a little for the first time since her brother, Port Authority police officer Ken Tietjen, 31, was killed three months ago.
Quinn said she will "forever cherish" a day last week when two Honolulu police officers took her family touring Oahu. Even more than the hospitality, she appreciated their empathy. "These guys, complete strangers, really wanted to know about my brother. And if you talk to any of us, I think you'll find that what we want most of all" is for the lost loved ones to be remembered, said Quinn. She can recount her brother's heroism on Sept. 11 because his partner survived to supply the details, as did people he rescued.
Tietjen was at a PATH train station at 33rd street when the first plane hit the Trade Center, Quinn said. He commandeered a taxi, driving "over sidewalks and through parking lots" to get downtown. He and his partner rushed into one tower and helped people out, then came out to get fresh respirators. There was only one left, so Tietjen, saying "seniority rules," took it and went back in, his partner waiting outside on the concourse. Then the building collapsed.
His partner was covered in rubble but got out. Tietjen, deeper inside the building, was never found. The 9-year veteran of the Port Authority police had been engaged to be married, and was like a father to his fiancee's teenage son, Quinn said.
"We're lucky enough to know that he was able to make a choice that day. He was told not to go back in and he chose to go. So he had some control over his destiny," said Quinn. His partner told Tietjen's family that "at no point did he look at my brother and see fear in his eyes. Because to be honest, that's what these guys are born to do."
Quinn said everyone in the New York group has been amazed by the "phenomenal" outpouring of sympathy, generosity and gratitude from Hawaii residents. Another 600 free trips will be offered through 2002, and Quinn hopes more surviving rescue workers can take them.
"The problem is that they lost so many guys and now they're on such high alert, they can't spare them," Quinn said. "These guys really need a break, and Hawaii is the perfect place for it."
