A Tribute to A Fire Man

Chris Pickford was a Fireman or as he would have said a Fire Man. I didn't know him. But I met him today in the faces and in the words of those he loved and had come to honor him. And in the smile and in the strength of his grieving mother's face when I released a red-tailed hawk back to the wild in his memory. I could see him reflected in her eyes. I could hear him in the words of compassion and comfort from Mayor Giuliani as he spoke at the church today. Chris was one of the many brave firefighters who rushed into the crumbling World Trade Center on September 11th to save people he didn't even know. A NYFD Fire Man. There were hundreds of these courageous men there today for the service that they wished would never end. It reminded me of what love is and what we take for granted. When I was a kid, growing up in New Jersey, the firemen made many visits to our house. We called them for everything. Everything. Once when I got my head stuck in a chair! Once, before I was born, to rescue my family from a fire. My grandparent's four year old son, Oliver, died from smoke inhalation in that fire. They were never the same. But they would always remember the heroic men who desperately tried to save their beloved. The men who held Oliver in their arms and who tried to breathe life back into him. And who cried when they failed. As he if he were their own. And he was.

I hope the red-tail stays in Chris Pickford's neighborhood for awhile, near the community where Chris was remembered, near the church where Chris had once served as an altar boy and near the homes of the people who love him. Chris was one of the many whose body was never recovered.

I never knew Chris. But I will never forget him. I will, forever, remember the rows of NY firemen, in their uniforms and the bagpipes and the slow beating of the drums and faces of his family and friends. The hawk looked at them and then flew straight over their heads and then over the heads of the crowds that had gathered in his memory. He flew over the fire engines and over the American flag that was suspended between them... And I will always remember Chris reflected in the warmth and the strength of his mother's eyes.

Learn more about this author, Dona Tracy.
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