news-record.com

This week, we’ll remember through a T-shirt, a birthmark and a pair of shoes.

Walk into The Claddagh, High Point’s only Irish pub, and you’ll see it just beyond the wooden beam: the makeshift shrine of helmets, badges, photos and T-shirts.

Particularly one T-shirt. It bears a date we’ll always remember: 9-11-01.

We’ll remember it Friday, the eighth anniversary of the day our world changed.

Eight years ago, two airplanes bulleted into our towers in New York City, a third barreled into our military’s five-sided headquarters in Washington and a fourth plowed into a Pennsylvania field.

Lives lost: at least 2,993 people. All in a few hours, planned and carried out by Islamic terrorists who hated everything about us.

Firefighters from Greensboro and High Point have turned that spot just beyond the wooden beam into their clubhouse.

They all have stories. Mary Nelson, the restaurant’s manager, has hers, too.

On Sept. 11, 2001, she was working in a home decor store in High Point when the phone rang. It was her oldest daughter Melissa. It wasn’t even 9 in the morning, and she was watching TV.

“Mom, I saw a plane crash into one of the towers, and I know Uncle Peter is there!’’ Melissa told her mom. “He’ll be in the middle of this!’’

He was. Peter Nelson, Mary’s brother-in-law. He came from a firefighting family. He, his father and his brother Al, Mary’s husband, were volunteer firefighters. Peter had been fighting fires since he was 18.

On 9/11, he was a firefighter for Rescue 4 in New York City. He burst into Tower 2 at the World Trade Center to save whoever he could find. As we all know, the tower fell. Peter didn’t come out.

They found his remains nearly two months later. They identified him by his coat. He was 40, a father of two. His wife, GiGi, was eight months pregnant.

Ask Mary about that, and she’ll talk about the trip to Huntington Station, her and her husband’s hometown on Long Island’s North Shore.

Three days after the attacks, the wind shifted and Huntington Station was dusted in ash from ground zero 40 miles away.

GiGi went into labor during her husband’s memorial service. Daughter Lyndsi was born with a small crescent birthmark in the middle of her forehead. Just like her dad. In the very same place.

“That’s where your daddy kissed you,’’ Mary tells her niece today, “just before he sent you down from heaven.’’

Philip Craft thinks about kids, too.

He’s 35, a new father. His son, Peter, his first child, is 5 months old. Philip reads to him and sings to him. And one day, he’ll tell him about 9/11.

Today, Philip works as the communications director for the Elon University School of Law.

On 9/11, he was deputy chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Greensboro native and Greensboro College grad who became a New York Democrat whose district included part of Manhattan.

For five years, Philip talked with hundreds of people affected by 9/11 — firefighters, rescue workers, companies and families. He knows dozens by first name, and he remembers their diligence, heroism and sense of purpose.

Someday, he’ll tell his son what he learned from that day — the need to cherish every moment, the importance of coming together to help others, the idea of living each day as if it’s your last.

Then, he’ll tell Peter about his shoes.

The day after the attacks, Philip toured ground zero in a pair of dress shoes, size 10. They once were black. The soot turned them gray. Afterward, Philip kept the shoes in his closet as a constant reminder of what he saw that day.

He never wore those shoes again.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com