Ten Year Anniversary Update (2011)

September 7, 2011
Goodness, since 9/11 so much has happened in my life. Darin was and continues to be such a large part of my life, I continue to speak about him and 9/11 whenever I am asked. After 9/11 I felt such sadness and felt so empty…it took a long time for that to go away enough for me to feel normal again. I spent many years so focused on my job, working kept me so busy and left me little time to think about the situation I found myself in. So now I believe I am personally in a much better place. It has taken so long to get to a place in my life where I don’t feel guilty about being happy and living life, and where my sadness hasn’t been an overwhelming factor in my life. So the best update is, that I am engaged to a wonderful man, a former member of the military who is in law enforcement now. We have moved to a new home and are building a life together.
For me, 9/11 was a day that changed my life forever. 9/11 is like a nightmare that just won’t go away. Not only did I lose my best friend and the person I planned to spend the rest of my life with, but I changed drastically as a result of all I went through. I quickly understood the reality of living in today’s world, that there are evil people out there and that there is no guarantee that we will live a long happy life. I learned that life isn’t always happy and fair, although for some people it appears on the surfance/outside to be harder than it is for others. 9/11 took six or seven good years away from me and filled them with upset and struggle. Daily struggles to do things that Darin would have helped me with, daily struggles to understand why my husband was taken and why my hopes and dreams of a happy marriage, having a family… were gone, all within one attack of an airplane into the Pentagon. Each day I miss Darin, but I have tried these past ten years to keep his memory alive and make sure that no one forgets about what happened on 9/11/01 not only in New York, but at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania as well. Personally, I try to make each day a happy one, appreciating the time I have with my family and my friends. I try to live like Darin did and with his motto, “learn as though you will live forever but live as though you will die tomorrow.”

– Devora Pontell

Devora Pontell Kirshner

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Washington, D.C.
September 13, 2002
V#0246