The Lost

By Richard J. Dalton | STAFF WRITER, Jo Craven McGinty

September 16, 2001

HOPE EMERGES strong and unyielding. Then it wanes, it wavers, it mutates.

Nonstop television images of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center have subsided. But loved ones keep replaying them in their heads, piercing the mind's defensive shield that guards the glimmers of hope from the grimness of reality.

Officials announce estimates of the missing, yet thousands of relatives still haven't heard an official word about their loved ones.

The wait has been too long, far too long. Some still cling to hope. Others pray they can live with the visceral pain of losing fathers or mothers, daughters or sons, brothers or sisters, boyfriends or girlfriends, aunts or uncles, nieces or nephews, in-laws, neighbors, co-workers or friends.

Some cannot speak of the horror. Others want the world to know about the son who would visit his elderly mother every Sunday, the father who was the biggest "kid" in the kickball game, the husband who wrote a moving love letter to his wife for their recent anniversary, the fireman who comforted his mother after his father's recent death. These are their stories.

Family of Firefighters Awaits Word of Son

On Monday night, David Halderman called his mother in Brentwood to comfort her, as he has done regularly since his father died on Aug. 8.

"I asked him to have a good night, to be careful, to be safe, and I told him I loved him," his mother, Geraldine Halderman, said. "That was the last time I spoke to him."

On Tuesday morning, Halderman, a firefighter with Engine-Squad 18 in the West Village, entered the World Trade Center to help victims escape. He is now among the missing city firefighters.

"He was in the building when it collapsed," Geraldine Halderman said. "They found his helmet. That's all they found."

The helmet was identified by its badge - No. 10652, the same badge number used by Halderman's late father.

Halderman turned 40 on Aug. 2. He has been a member of the New York Fire Department for at least 10 years, his mother said. His father, who died last month after an extended illness, was a retired fireman, and his brother Michael, 44, is a captain with Engine Co. 325 in Woodside, the same firehouse their father worked at for 30 years.

Michael Halderman was off duty Tuesday but was recalled after the Twin Towers were attacked.

"Michael was on his way to the city when the tower collapsed," Geraldine Halderman said. "He never saw David."

Michael Halderman is still working in the recovery at the site in lower Manhattan.

Although her late husband and two of her three sons are career firefighters, Geraldine Halderman said she has not been plagued by fears for them over the years. "You just feel like if they're going to go out, they're going to come home," she said. "I never thought about them not coming back."

Now, as she, Michael and the rest of the family - her daughters, Christine and Marianne, and her oldest son, Steven - await word of David, Geraldine Halderman said this resolve has occasionally wavered.

"Sometimes we're still hoping," she said softly. "Sometimes the reality of it is he's probably not survived. We just don't know."

- Jo Craven McGinty

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