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CNN Sunday Morning
Memorial at Ground Zero Expected to Bring Mixed Emotions
Aired October 28, 2001 - 09:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: In New York, recovery work has been halted where the World Trade Center once stood. This afternoon, families who lost loved ones will attend a memorial service at that site.
CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman is live in lower Manhattan this morning. Hello again, Gary.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you Marty.
And this memorial service is certainly not suited for everybody, because the site of it guarantees that. Many grieving relatives say they just can't bear to come right next to where their loves ones were so brutally killed, and participate in this memorial service.
But other people say this is sacred ground. There are many cases, the final resting places of their loved ones, and they feel the need to be here.
Either way, they have the choice. The city of New York has decided to hold it here because many people did want it here. They acknowledge, however, that many people will never be able to come to this site, and will not participate in today's service.
Four thousand six hundred, that is the approximate number of people who were killed in the World Trade Center complex on September 11 according to the City of New York. Media organizations have put the number a little lower, perhaps in the 2,500 to 2,800 range. It's still not clear. Either way an awful lot of people were killed, and only 506 bodies have been recovered so far. And that's a very difficult part for many of these grieving families, the lack of a body.
A few weeks ago we talked with a family on Long Island, New York, the Cappello family. They lost their youngest son, and they held a memorial service for their son on September 29, which was his birthday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): This is the day Jonathan Cappello would have turned 24. Instead it's the day his parents and hundreds of others remembered his life. CLAUDIA CAPPELLO, VICTIM'S MOTHER: Jonathan loved -- loved life. From the time they handed him to me on September 29, he went to bed happy, he woke up happy and everything was happy in between.
TUCHMAN: But on September 11 Jonathan was on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center when it imploded. He was working as an international bond trader.
C. CAPPELLO: Everybody said we're supposedly at war or we're starting a war. I did not send my son to war. I sent him to work.
TUCHMAN: Jonathan was precocious as a child.
BOB CAPPELLO, VICTIM'S FATHER: Do you remember that -- how he used to be able to get out of his crib?
TUCHMAN: The youngest of three brothers who idolized his two older siblings, who doted on him. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do after college but three months ago received a job at Cantor Fitzgerald. He was thrilled with the job and in love with his girlfriend, Dana.
B. CAPPELLO: We've got to put that one up there, too.
TUCHMAN: For more than a week Claudia and Bob Cappello kept the faith that maybe their son was alive under the rubble. He's still missing. But his mother says she has now accepted Jonathan's fate after feeling her son's spirit visit her.
C. CAPPELLO: It was not wings floating around. He told me, he said, "Mom, it's enough. I'm here but I'm whole. I came with my body." And for that I was grateful. And that's when I knew it.
TUCHMAN: The day before his memorial service Jonathan's parents, brothers, other relatives and girlfriend, Dana, watched a video of him from his brother's wedding for the first time since the disaster.
JONATHAN CAPPELLO: My dizzy is short and sweet. I want to thank Rob for giving me a sister.
TUCHMAN: It was painful for them to watch, but it's something they felt the need to do.
Jonathan's father, who share's his son's birthday, can't stop thinking about his final time speaking with his boy.
B. CAPPELLO: As he said every day to me, "Thanks for the ride, Poppa. I'll see you tonight."
J. CAPPELLO: The last thing I said to him and the last thing that he said to me -- what we say to each other every day, every night for 23 years -- I go, "I love you, Johnny B." And he says, "I love you, Pumpkin. You're my woman." That's the last thing I said. It was 11:00 at night. That was it. That was it.
TUCHMAN: And this is how they spent Johnny's birthday. (END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN: The Cappellos have told me they will not be here today. They say it's too hard to see this, too hard to smell this.
There are 5,000 chairs set up behind me on Church Street, just to the east of the World Trade Center Complex. We don't know how many of them will be filled.
Marty, back to you.
SAVIDGE: Well Gary, at least it looks like a pretty day there, chilly obviously; but still, it's going to be a painful one. Thank you very much, Gary Tuchman at ground zero.
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