A family’s heartbreak and hope pour out from heroics of United Flight 93

By Mike Krokos

Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas and unborn child.

That inscription on the Wall of Names at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., has been a strong memory since I visited there four years ago.

The Pennsylvania memorial is a powerful reminder of what passengers aboard United Flight 93 from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco did on Sept. 11, 2001, to prevent al Qaeda terrorists from flying a hijacked plane into the U.S. Capitol or White House in Washington, sacrificing their lives for a greater good, saving countless others.

Twenty-five years later, their heroism still stands as a poignant, selfless act because the 40 passengers and crew made the ultimate sacrifice, a decision many of us, please God, will never face. Tragically, nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Va., and in that Pennsylvania field on what many consider the darkest day to occur on American soil.

The Pennsylvania memorial, operated by the U.S. National Park Service, offers a somber reminder of all those aboard the flight who fought back against the hijackers, resulting in Flight 93 crashing into that open field.

Every year since my family’s visit, I’ve thought about learning more about Lauren, then-38, and her unborn child’s story. I recently decided it was time.

Upon researching her life story, I learned Lauren was returning home to California from her grandmother’s funeral in New Jersey, and was three months pregnant with her and her husband Jack Grandcolas’ child. She had suffered a miscarriage a few years earlier, and the couple wondered if they would ever have any children. They believed that uncertainty was answered in 2001.

Lauren was among the passengers aboard the flight who called a family member to let them know there was a problem. She left messages for Jack on their answering machine, conveyed her love for him and asked him to tell her family that she loved them, too.

Not long after, she and the others on the flight were gone.

‘Forgiveness. It’s his most powerful gift’

Lauren and Jack’s first date included a U2 concert, her favorite group. Both Lauren and Jack were brought up Catholic, but neither of them was practicing the faith, including after they married. Little did Jack know an unplanned meeting with Bono, U2’s lead singer—who was brought up by a Catholic father and a Protestant mother and who later developed a deep faith in God and Christ—would profoundly impact him after Lauren’s death.

In the months before her death, Lauren began attending a weekly Bible study. It had a powerful effect on her, her husband said.

In his book Like A River To The Sea: Heartbreak and Hope in the Wake of United 93 (from a lyric in U2’s song “One Tree Hill”), Jack and his co-author Alan Shipnuck described how Lauren became immersed in the weekly Scripture gathering.

“One evening she came home and said, ‘I finally get it,’ ” Jack wrote. When he asked her, “Get what?” she responded, “The meaning of it all.”

“I wanted to hear more but she said, ‘It’s too deep to explain, but I wanted you to know I get it.’ I wish I had pushed her to tell me more, but I didn’t. And then she was gone.”

Jack, meanwhile, especially struggled with the thought of a loving Creator after 9/11.

“What kind of merciful God would take my sweet Lauren and our child?” he asked in his book.

His conversation with Bono a few years later helped change his perspective.

Jack attended a U2 concert in Oakland in 2005, and he unexpectedly met the singer after the show and had a heart-to-heart conversation with him about his struggles.

“Being brought up Catholic, you’re given all this guilt about things that you didn’t do right,” Jack told Bono. “I worry that I may have screwed up in this life and mortgaged my opportunity to see Lauren again.”

Bono’s response moved Jack.

“You’ll see her again. I know it. We all screw up in life,” Bono told him. “That’s why God grants us forgiveness. It’s his most powerful gift.”

Bono’s words changed him and his faith, Jack noted.

“Ever since 9/11, I had questioned God and his plan for me,” he wrote. “The night was a tribute to her, but in a very important way it set me free, allowing me to be more forgiving of myself and rekindle my belief in God’s mercy.”

‘Dear Son … or Daughter’

The grief that anyone who lost a loved one on 9/11 continues to feel is understandable. Many Americans old enough to have a lived memory of that day can still be moved to tears when recalling what happened. I am.

In 2021, Jack reflected on the tragedy in a story written by Tim Lambert, then-Morning Edition regional radio host and multimedia news director at WITF radio in Harrisburg, Pa.

Jack admitted that, years later, although he had come to terms with the loss of Lauren, he had not fully processed the loss of their unborn child, who would have been born in April 2002. The child’s name would have been Grace if a girl, and Gavin, if a boy.

“All I could think about year in and year out was, ‘This child would have been 12 this year. What would they have been doing? This child would have been 16 this year. What would they have been doing?’ ” he told Lambert.

Thanks to the advice of a therapist, Jack began writing down his thoughts and working through them. It eventually led him to write his book and dedicate it to their unborn child.

The foreword begins, “Dear Son … or Daughter, I am writing this story at the advice of my therapist. She felt it would be helpful to share a little bit about your mom and dad, and why you will always have your place in history. This story may also help others who have suffered a traumatic loss.”

The book delves into Jack’s years of depression and post-traumatic stress, then the therapy that later enabled him to move forward.

“I’ll never have full closure,” Grandcolas said in a 2022 interview. “I’ll always have a scar on my heart, but it’s certainly a way for me to do something to memorialize the unborn child.”

He also hopes his book helps others deal with sudden loss, including a generation lost because of an unexpected death.

“So it is a generational book in a way because it’s a love letter to the generation that would have been in their 20s now,” Grandcolas said.

May we forever hold those words close to our heart

The story of Lauren, Jack and Grace or Gavin is one of thousands that can be told as we remember Sept. 11, 2001.

As the 25th anniversary of that day again offers a chance to remember the ultimate sacrifice made by many, it’s also an opportunity for us to write our own love letter.

I pray learning more about Lauren, Jack and their unborn child will strengthen my resolve as I move forward in my vocation as a husband, father and disciple of Christ.

It should also be a time for us to put aside our differences, to come together as one nation under God, to see and love our brothers and sisters as they are—no matter their race, color, creed or political affiliation.

And it’s an opportune time to remember our loved ones who have gone to their eternal reward.

Jack may have said it best at the end of his book: “We all suffer loss. We all endure heartbreak. It’s how you respond to these cataclysms that define you. Sometimes the most beautiful things grow out of our hardest moments … .”

For all of us who have lost loved ones—including those impacted by 9/11—may we forever hold those words close to our heart.
 

(Mike Krokos is editor of The Criterion, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.) †

 

Related: 9/11 memories: Rediscovering the gift of life amid the heartbreak