Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001.
Another 13,328 Americans were born that day.
Hillary O’Neill was one of them.
Her parents — Coleytown Middle School teacher Glenn, and Heather, a landscape designer — spent that awful morning at Norwalk Hospital. They watched on TV as the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon burned, and the world wondered what would happen next.
Hillary arrived at 2:55 p.m. Outside the delivery room hospital staff rushed around, preparing for an overflow onslaught of victims from Manhattan who never came.
Hillary O’Neill (Photo courtesy of Esquire)
Today, Hillary turns 15. Her birthday feels like none of the other 364 days of the year. This month, Esquire.com published her insights.
Hillary says that her parents never tried to hide her unique birthday from her. They showed her videos and news stories about 9/11. She heard “the panic in people’s voices.”
When she was 9 days old, President Bush declared a war on terror. It’s been going on ever since. “It’s the norm for me,” she told Esquire. “And I feel like it’s only going to get worse.”
Like her friends, the Staples High School sophomore thinks — and worries about — the high cost of education. Conflicts in the Middle East. Terror attacks.
But in the tales she’s heard about the day she was born, Hillary also finds hope. She says:
When I heard the stories about how 9/11 was in the days afterwards, I heard how everyone came together, and everyone was nicer to each other. To me, it’s important to be able to be that sense of hope. I know some of our family friends lost their spouses or parents, and on my birthday, they always make sure to send me a card or text. I think it’s such a hard day for them that thinking about it as my birthday is a lot easier—something happy on a day that would otherwise have no joy.
For me, my birthday is big because it’s happy and marks me getting older, but for the rest of the world, my birthday means one of the worst days they can remember. On my birthday—I don’t know how to put it into words. Conflicting, is what I’m trying to say.
It’s conflicting emotions, because I feel like it’s really important to have a day to remember the victims of 9/11, but I also want to celebrate. I’ve come to the point now where I can find a way to do both. Now, honoring victims has become the celebration of my birthday—like volunteering, which I did last year. That’s just as good as any celebration to me.
Heather and Hillary O’Neill. (Photo courtesy of Esquire)
I’m proud to be an American. I’m glad I live in a country where change can happen, even though it might be difficult. My dad for example, he’s from Ireland, and when he moved here, his whole family wanted to be in America because it represented this hope and future you could have. It’s represented hope for so many people from other countries. I feel like we need to get that feeling back.
Being born on 9/11 is a part of who I am. It’s a responsibility to bring hope to the world that I try to carry with me every day.
(Click here to read the full Esquire interview with Hillary O’Neill.)
Another Staples High School student — Gabriel Dick — was born 6 days after Hillary.
His birth was tinged with even more sorrow: His father was killed when the North Tower collapsed.
He never knew his dad, Ariel Jacobs. But Gabi imagines him on the top floor, he told People.com.
“I think he knows he’s gonna die, but he’s at peace and he’s just hoping my mom and I are gonna be okay.”
Gabi believes his father is “out there — somewhere, guiding me along my path in life.” He and his mother release red balloons on 9/11, with notes to Ari.
Gabriel Dick (Photo/Abbie Townsend Venture Photography Greenwich)
Fifteen years later, Gabi says, “I know that I missed out, but I don’t need people to feel sorry for me because there’s nothing for me to remember. I just need them to understand that I lost something.”
(Click here to read the full People magazine interview with Gabriel Dick.)
(Hat tip: Kerry Long)
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