This is my story in this week’s Brooklyn Paper
One of Brooklyn’s highest-profile “9-11 widows,” Marian Fontana of Park Slope, is engaged.
More
than five years after the horrific day that claimed the life of
thousands — including her husband, Lt. David Fontana of Squad 1 —
Fontana got engaged last week to Tom Martinez, a minister at the All
Souls Bethlehem Church, a Unitarian congregation in Kensington.
“What
I love about Tom is that he understands what I have gone through and
the deep love I will always have for Dave, and is okay with all of it,”
Fontana wrote in an email to her friends.
“I am blessed to have so much love in my life.”
Fontana
told friends that she had a hunch that Martinez, a fine arts
photographer and author of “Confessions of a Seminarian: Searching for
a Soul in the Shadow of Empire,” was going to propose because he first
asked Fontana’s 10-year-old son, Aidan, about how he should go about it.
“Tom
asked for Aidan’s permission first, a gesture so sweet and so
indicative of the love they share,” Fontana wrote in that email.
“I was not surprised that he began his proposal with ‘I love Aidan with all my heart.’”
Of course, 10-year-olds aren’t the best at keeping secrets, so Fontana knew the big question was about to be popped.
Though
she now lives in Staten Island, Fontana remains a larger-than-life
figure in Park Slope, thanks to the way she mobilized the neighborhood
after 9-11 to keep Squad 1 open when the city threatened to shut it
down just weeks after the attacks.
The squad, which is housed on Union Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, lost 12 firefighters that day.
— Louise Crawford
I live in South Dakota and have read and reread your book many times. The first time it humanized 911; although naturally the attack affected me, I had no personal connections to anyone in NYC and your story allowed me to see it all through “a real person’s” eyes, rather than the sound bites of newscasters and biases expressed by politicians. In 2006 I was widowed after 5 years of marriage, and I reread your words again to gain strength from your experiences. Your grief and subsequent journey resembled so closely what I was feeling–I can’t begin to tell you the comfort I received reading of your continued strength and ways of coping during such a terrible time. I’ve thought of you often, hoping that you had found love again, and wanted you to know I am so happy for you and wish you the very best. Congratulations!
Being a widower myself and a mother of two beautiful little girls, I could understand what Marian went through. Blessings to you and Aidan. Thank you Marian for sharing with the worlk your beautiful story. Sonia
I just finished a widows walks and every page I read brought tears to my eyes. I was just looking up Marian to see how she felt about the firefighter that was found. I am estatic to see that she has found love again. I am so happy for her.
Marian —
I am so happy to hear you are engaged. These are notes I have written to you after finishing Widow’s Walk, just this Friday night.
I am a documentary radio producer who, for over 20 years, has lived just a block east of the WTC site. After 9-11-01, I made radio doc called “Risiing Daily From the Ashes,” a story of all my neighbors and how we responded. We were and are outsiders, but I would love to send you and/or your org a copy of the doc.
We, the neighbors of 9/11, were so close in proximity to the site, wondering, always wondering over the vastness of levels, physical, emotional and political.
I learned a lot by reading Widow’s Walk that was unexpected. But most of all, being a writer myself, I was constantly struck by your own talent to write, to weave words and stories and portraits of people.
And the recovery efforts afterwards, which affected all of us in the neighborhood in a different way. Most of us came back after four weeks. The constant reminders coming with the bumps and scrapes and thuds and the piercing light from the site 24 hours a day…
I came upon the thought that each sound was made by a human being, and it gave me some peace– being an outsider and insider at the same time.
And although you write about the existence of spirit (or not) in the book, it made total sense to me when the rainbow came in Hawaii just as Dave was found. My somewhat eclectic beliefs — Buddhist-Methodist-Episcapol– and my experience in life has led me to believe that a spirit can rest in peace once their remains are claimed.
Some days in this neighborhood when the sky has a brilliant blue sky much like it was on September 11th, I think of those lost, and welcome them. I have a wall hanging of the White Tara, the Buddhist goddess of unconditional love and healing, and she stays on the East wall of my home, the one with the windows from which we witnessed that day. That window has never been opened since.
A lot of little altars were made since that day — for you, for Dave, for Aidan, for the unfound — Even though we didn’t know who you were, because of your book, your courage and talent to write it — we now have a glimpse.
Thank you Mirian Fontana, for your talent, and for all your writing which will follow. And best of love in your new life to come.
Please put me on your mailing list.
And if I get an address, I will send you a copy of my radio doc.
Eternal blessings,
Ginger Miles
John Street, NYC 10038
gingermiles@nyc.rr.com
Marian has touched nearly everyone in Park Slope: either through her activities teaching our children to move creatively or through her writing and advocacy. This is wonderful news.
I wish her a long and happy married life.
Having just recently read Marian Fontana’s poignant memoir, “A Widow’s Walk” (which I commented on in some detail in response to a posting a couple of weeks ago about another book, “What is the What?” by Dave Eggers), I am so thrilled at this news. (Almost as if I knew her!). Congratulations, Marian!