Many North Jersey widows were young when their fiances died on 9/11.

NORTH JERSEY — With an 8-minute commute to the World Trade Center, the mile-square city of Hoboken, N.J. was teeming with people in their twenties and thirties who worked in the Twin Towers during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Several were engaged to be married or had been married only a few years.

Tracy Orr O'Keefe, now a Westfield resident, had been married for six years on Sept. 11, 2001, to husband Alex Steinman, when Steinman's building was evacuated. He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor.

Tracy got a voicemail message from Alex on Sept. 11 saying he was heading back to their Hoboken home. She never heard from him again.

In the weeks before the attack, the pair had just been looking at suburban communities to move to so they could start a family.

Tracy was among several young widowers and widows who have reflected on what they've learned in the 20 years since the terrorist attacks, and about how they try to move forward.

A City Full Of Sad Signs

In the days after the attacks, signs of the dead appeared across Hoboken: Besides missing posters, someone taped a note on a man's car, begging the city not to ticket it because he wouldn't be back; friends signed a poster on the apartment door of 28-year-old Neil Dollard, saying, "Come home soon."

Hoboken lost 57 community members in the attacks, and was said to be the zip code with the most losses. Among those feeling "lost" were partners of the dead.

Tracy Orr O'Keefe found herself among 25 young widows and widowers who gravitated to a new support group at a Hoboken church in November 2001. She even met her current spouse, Joe — a 9/11 widower — in the group. During the 20th anniversary of the attack this coming weekend, support group members plan to reunite, Tracy said.

Twenty Years Ago

The group started when Laurie Wurm — then a priest at All Saints Church in Hoboken and now a rector in Jersey City — encountered young widows and widowers at a 9/11 memorial service. She decided to start the group along with Sandra O'Connor, 31, a mom of a 2-year-old who had lost her husband.

Most of the women and men who came to the group were not members of the church, and not all were Christian, but they were suffering and needed to connect.

Tracy, then 34, began attending the group and gradually got to know one of the widowers, Joe O'Keefe. The pair fell in love, and they got married in 2006.

After the pair married, they waited almost a decade to tell their two children that they had been married to other people.

Last week, with the anniversary of Sept. 11 approaching, Tracy looked back at what she's learned and how her perspective has changed.

In a prior interview with Patch in 2011 (See: Life After Loss), Tracy had told a reporter that she and Joe hadn't explained to their toddler children about their former spouses. But last week, Tracy said that her children now know about the pair's previous lives.

"They are 12 and 15 now," Tracy said last week. "They were both aware of 9/11 previously to some extent, just not specifically how it impacted us directly. At this time, they also learned about how we were actually 'related' to our 'extended' family [Alex’s and Lesley’s family] ... They were empathetic but also pretty 'matter of fact' about it. We now joke that the 'sex talk' with the kids will be harder than the 9/11 talk."

O'Keefe said that in the last two decades, she's learned about surviving grief, and more.

Thoughts Years Later

"Even today it all still feels surreal," Tracy said last week. "The extent of the physical damage, the enormity of loss and number of lives impacted. When I think of that time, I often think of my last hours with Alex. I remember so vividly getting caught in the pouring rain on the afternoon of Sept. 10 walking down Hudson Street in Hoboken to our car. We had just gotten back from a big trip to Italy for a friend’s wedding."

She said, "Of course everyone seems to remember the clear blue skies the next day … that became smoke filled. After I made it home to Hoboken from midtown and saw the towers fall with my own eyes, I called so many hospitals and Cantor colleagues that weren’t there that day ... most of the time after 9/11 was a big blur."

She said, "My loss on 9/11 has given me incredible — almost crushing — empathy for people who experience loss … to a point where sometimes I have to shelter myself from the news and stop myself from thinking about the pain others are feeling. My biggest advice for someone dealing with severe grief is to focus on self care (eat, sleep, shower!) and to try and focus on the small things you do have to be grateful for."

She added, "As crazy as it is to think about, 9/11 brought me Joe and his amazing family and our two children. Joe and I have experienced an unimaginable common loss and I believe that provides an underlying strength to our relationship. I am hopeful that our story can be an example for others that there can be light and life again after experiencing such darkness … at a time when none of that seems possible."

The Support Group

Laurie Wurm says she's learned a lot about grief too.

Wurm, now the rector at Grace Church Van Vorst in Jersey City, drew people from all walks of Hoboken life to the support group: A young woman who was supposed to get married weeks after the attacks, and another who was to be married a year later.

In two decades since meeting them all, "I learned things that shaped me as a priest," Wurm said. "First, when I recoil at the thought someone's catastrophic loss, it's always because I'm imagining it from the outside and haven't joined them in it. When you are completely present and listening to someone who is suffering the fear of being inadequate goes away."

She said, "To listen very carefully and ask good questions about what you've heard can be the greatest gift one person can give another. Being understood can provide some level of instant relief to someone who is suffering, and over time it can help people heal."

'The Most Important Thing Is To Work On Knowing People Out Of Your Comfort Zone'

Wurm said, "I also came to a deeper understanding about how particular love is. 911 confirmed for me that the most important thing anyone can do is to work on knowing people you have to go out of your comfort zone to get to know — people of other faiths, other cultures, with different political beliefs."

Wurm said that the tragedy may have had an impact on the widows' and widowers' career paths. One became a therapist and another a social worker, she noted.

Those paths will undoubtedly help others, including survivors, all of whom grieve differently.

One man who lost his wife was found dead in his Hoboken apartment just weeks after the 10th anniversary of the attacks, in 2011. Police said it appeared that the 50-year-old man had not died of obvious trauma, but several of his friends told the local media he was never the same after losing his wife.

Learning About Grief

Wurm says she is still learning about grief.

"I was 32 in 2001," she said. "For the most part I was a good 5 to 10 years older than the people in the support group ... My biggest aspiration is to offer and receive small acts of kindness. Grace Church Van Vorst is a place where those happen every day. I'm like the members of the 911 group who I still hear from: very blessed."

Tracy said that after moving to Westfield in 2009, she and Joe have visited, each year, a 9/11 memorial and a shrine to St. Joseph in Stirling, NJ. "It's a really serene and beautiful spot," she said.

She said that she and friends will probably meet up with Wurm in Hoboken on Sunday.

"Our 9/11 support group was a lifeline and godsend," she said. "Of course, most significantly, it brought Joe and I together. ...Each week, we took a moment to light a candle for our lost loved one, we discussed how we were coping — successes and challenges. We knew we were in a safe place with others who understood and empathized."

She added, "We always say, 'We wish we didn’t know each other, but we are so happy and thankful to have each other in our lives.' "

Remembering Hoboken's 9/11 Victims: List And Memorial Details Here

Read About A Bridgewater 9/11 Widow Here

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