I’ve been coming to this ceremony for 13 years now — ever since I was 8 years old — and while we mourn our family members every day, on the anniversary it really hits home.
But Mayor Bill de Blasio ruined it for us, and it was sad and very frustrating.
Ever since I was a kid, I remember seeing the mayor [referring to ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg] every year, and it would be a big deal, because it’s not every day you see him. But at 9 a.m. this year, we started lining up, and I saw no sign of the mayor. Then it’s about to be 9:16 a.m., time for the moment of silence, and I started getting really anxious and upset when he still wasn’t there.
You can’t delay this moment for anyone or anything, because it happened at that exact time. So I went to the podium and told the crowd, “Sorry, our mayor’s not here, but it is a time that exactly 13 years ago, our family members passed away — and we will now toll the bells.”
We tolled the bell and shared a moment of silence together — and even after that, the mayor was still nowhere to be found. I made eye contact with my mom in the crowd, and she came up to the stage to tell everyone we were going to proceed without him. De Blasio showed up moments later, but he didn’t even apologize for being late.
After we read the victims’ names out loud, he came up again. Usually, the mayor walks with the family members to the memorial and pays his respects with everyone around him — but he didn’t even suggest we all walk together. He just left it up in the air and walked off stage. I was infuriated because we didn’t deserve that.
I had to walk up there once again and tell them we would all go over to the memorial together. I took responsibility, but that’s not what I had expected to do that day. I was supposed to be mourning my five family members’ deaths.
At the end of the ceremony, I told him we felt disrespected. He just said, “We’re trying our best.”
He didn’t apologize. He didn’t really seem to care. I’m very outspoken and blunt, and he needed to hear it. I’m sure no one confronts him the way I did. And he wasn’t expecting it. I caught him at the perfect moment and it made me happy because I got to voice my opinion, and I know it made my family members in heaven proud. What I did was for them.
De Blasio definitely owes us an apology. We appreciate them still organizing the memorial, but you can’t show up late to the service.
He’s just making excuses by blaming it on the night before. Guess what: Everyone has had a rough night. This day means a lot of things to me. Not only did I lose these family members, but I lost a huge part of me as well.
And this year, the ceremony was a mess.
Miriam Estrella, a 21-year-old psychology student at William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ, lost five loved ones — her aunt and uncle, two cousins and her uncle’s father — in the crash of Flight 587. She lives in Bergenfield, NJ.