MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH

#WhoWeAre...Heartbreaking, sweet. 

Beverly Eckert remembers the last conversation she had her with her husband, Sean, who died in the 9/11 attacks. Sean Rooney worked in the south tower of the World Trade Center. He was killed in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. After the planes hit, Sean called his wife, Beverly Eckert.

Sean had warm brown eyes and dark curly hair and he was a good hugger. We met when we were only 16 at a high-school dance. When he died we were fifty. 

It's about 9:30 a.m. when he called and he told me he was on the 105th floor and he'd been trying to find a way out. He told me that he – you know – he hadn't had any success and now the stairwell was full of smoke. I asked if it hurt for him to breathe and he paused for a moment and then said ‘no’. He loved me enough to lie.

We stopped talking about escape routes and then we just began talking about all the happiness we shared during our lives together. I told him that I wanted to be there with him, die with him, but he said no, no. He wanted me to live a full life.  

As the smoke got thicker he just kept whispering ‘I love you’ over and over.  I just wanted to crawl through the phone lines to him, to hold him one last time. Then I heard a sharp crack followed by the sound of an avalanche. It was the building beginning to collapse. I called his name into the phone over and over. Then I just sat there pressing the phone to my heart. 

I think about that last half hour with Sean, all the time, I remember how I didn't want that day to end. Terrible as it was, I didn't want to go to sleep. I guess as long as I was awake it was still a day that I'd shared with Sean, you know, and he kissed me goodbye before leaving for work. I could still say that was just a little while ago that was only this morning.

And looking back on all that has happened since he died and the causes I fought for and the things I've done, I I just think of myself as living life for both of us now, and I like to think that Sean would be proud of me.

SEAN= A man's name, pronounced  /ʃɒn/ 

CURLY HAIR= (see picture)

HUGGER= A person who hugs (see picture). If you are a good hugger, you hug very well.

STAIRWELL= The vertical shaft or opening containing a stairway.

HURT= (hurt-hurt-hurt) If something hurts, you feel pain.

PAUSE= /pɔ:z/ Stop for a moment.

BREATHE= /bri:ð/ When you breathe, you take air into your body and then take it out.

TO LIE= To say something which is not true.

SHARE= If you share something with someone, you use it together.

THICKER= More thick. Thick is the opposite of thin.

WHISPERING= To whisper is to speak in a very soft voice.

CRAWL= Move like a small insect with many legs. In this case the idea is moving through a very small place (phone lines) as if I were as little as a small insect.

SHARP= (of a sound) Abrupt or acute.

AVALANCHE= A rapid flow of snow down a slope (it makes a very strong sound similar to lots of distant thunders)

COLLAPSE= (of a very tall thing) To fall down, to crumble.

TERRIBLE AS IT WAS= Although it was terrible...

I GUESS= (coll.) I suppose.

AS LONG AS= While.

A LITTLE WHILE AGO= A short time ago.

LOOKING BACK ON ALL THAT= Remembering all that.

PROUD= If you feel proud of someone, you feel satisfied and happy because that person, whom you considered part of you, is wonderful or has done something wonderfully.