On the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, I am participating in D. Challener Roe’s 2,996 Project to honor victims of the attacks. Click on the 2,996 link to see the complete list of victims and the other bloggers with tributes posted on their sites.
Pedro Francisco Checo
“He was the life of every party. His laughter would carry for blocks.”
This was how Milly Cabrera described the father of her children, Pedro Francisco Checo. They first met at a party and then met again at a wedding party, but their 11 year relationship was to be cut tragically short when he was killed as he worked at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He was 35 years old.
Pedro was born in New York and grew up in Manhattan. He attended John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx and excelled in baseball. He was American born, but his parents were of the Dominican Republic. Though he never married, Pedro lived with Milly Cabrera and they had two sons together, Jasen and Julian. He also had a son, Franklin, from an earlier relationship. Pedro had a love for cars, particularly Datsuns. He owned one that he was fixing up in the hopes of drag racing with it. He hated the name Pedro, so at home Milly called him by his nickname, Frank. At work he was known as Pete. He was working as Vice President of Investment Operations at Fiduciary Trust International in Tower 2, the South Tower, of the World Trade Center on September 11th when the second plane struck at 9:02 a.m. Fiduciary Trust International’s offices were on the 96th floor of the tower which means that Pedro was likely trapped above the floors 78 to 85 that were directly hit.
I was nine months pregnant with my second child and in my obstetrician’s exam room as the terrorists struck. I could hear the news reports over the radio station that was playing throughout the office. I remember that after waiting what seemed like an eternity, a nurse came to get me and we gathered around the television in the waiting room to witness the destruction unfolding.
I can’t help but think that as I stood in that waiting room, my baby’s birth imminent, Pedro was in that building I saw on television about to lose his life. Though I did not know him, my heart breaks for the anguish he may have had that day in that tower, and for the anguish of his loved ones as they lost a dear son, father, and friend. It is with great sadness that I think of him on this the fifth anniversary of his untimely and unjust death. I wish his family and friends peace and love as they remember him, and the love and laughter he gave to their lives.
