On September 11, 2001, Jeremy Glick boarded United Flight 93 only because a fire at Newark Airport had prevented him from flying out the day before. That morning, he called his wife, Lyz, to tell her the plane had been hijacked and that he and a group of others were going to storm the cockpit, an effort that doomed Glick and his fellow passengers, yet doubtless saved lives on the ground and instantly became known worldwide as a heroic moment of resistance. But Lyz wanted the couple's daughter, Emmy, only three months old when the plane crashed, to learn much more of her father's story than just the ending. Your Father's Voice narrates Lyz's struggle to come to grips with her husband's death in a series of letters from Lyz to Emmy that give a wrenching but clear-eyed account of Lyz's first years without Jeremy. Through it all, Lyz pragmatically details the challenges of a single parent raising a daughter in the aftermath of horrific tragedy, and urges Emmy to listen for what Lyz can still hear when the wind is right: her father's voice. “[A] poignant addition to the literary legacy of 9/11.” ― Kirkus “Unflinching and emotionally powerful...beautiful.” ― Publishers Weekly “Frank, eloquent, a forthright story.” ― Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Lyz's voice is...the voice of your smartest, most honest, and fearless friend...heartbreaking.” ― The Times of (Trenton) “Eloquent and stirring.” ― The Record Lyz Glick is the widow of Jeremy Glick, a former national collegiate judo champion who helped attack the cockpit of Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. She teaches at Berkeley College in New Jersey, and she and Emmy live in Hewitt, New Jersey. Dan Zegart , a longtime journalist who has written for Ms. and The Nation , is the author of Civil Warriors: The Legal Siege on the Tobacco Industry . He lives in Titusville, New Jersey, with his wife, photographer Laura Pedrick, and their daughter, Lana. Your Father's Voice Letters for Emmy About Life with Jeremy — and Without Him After 9/11 By Lyz Glick, Dan Zegart St. Martin's Press Copyright © 2004 Lyz Glick and Dan Zegart All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-312-31922-9 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Dedication, Epigraph, First Light, Strong and Sweet, Pieces, Parts, and Postcards, The Little Man Makes a Move, My House to the White House, Dorrian's Red Hand, Search Parties, Monkeys, Sharks, and Dragons: A Love Story, Memory Box, Arrivals and Departures, Your Father's Voice, Epilogue, Acknowledgments, Also by Dan Zegart, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 First Light Dear Emmy, I remember the morning after your father died. When I awoke, I was upstairs at Grandma and Grandpa's house in the Catskills, a big, old, white clapboard farmhouse. I was in the brass bed and you were in your crib, right next to me. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a pile of your daddy's clean clothes in a wicker basket. On the night table were a couple of his favorite CDs. I just started wailing. I could hardly get my breath I was crying so hard. I sat up, put on my robe, trembling. The bedroom door was closed. I hoped I hadn't woken up the whole house. It was very early. Light was pouring in, the golden light of the sweetest part of the morning. A close friend who lost her mom and dad in childhood had called the day before with advice: Get up quick, she said. Don't lie around in bed ... thinking ... remembering ... crying ... It was good advice and I've followed it ever since, but I never counted on seeing so much of your dad's stuff lying around. So I managed to swing my feet onto the floor and wobble over to the railing of your crib, but I just kept crying harder and harder, because the daddy who loved you so fiercely, as fiercely as any man ever loved his tiny baby girl, was gone forever. As I looked at you there, tucked under your little blue blanket, a mobile of white lambs turning slowly above your head, I was sick with anxiety, thinking you would know only a sad mother. I didn't want to imagine what it would be like for you to grow up without ever knowing your father. I felt like you'd truly lost both your parents the day before. You were still tiny, just three months old. Born prematurely, you were small even for that age. So small! Who would protect you? Who would make you grin like your daddy did? You lay on your back, eyes closed. Just then, from the bottom of a dream, you let out a delicate sigh, as though finishing a thought. Your cheeks crinkled up and you smiled ever so slightly at me. I cannot explain it, but at that moment I felt the power of something higher pulling me into something bigger than my pain. Your little shadow of a smile just took me over — like the sunlight from that window had gotten inside and warmed me. Like your father's energy was burning through the window. Your smile made me feel good enough to believe that maybe life could be good again. And then I remembered that the last time your fathe