The next generation of 9/11 families never met their lost relatives but inherited the emotional toll of their death and the unspoken responsibility of keeping their legacy alive.
ROBBINSVILLE -- Belinda Faith Lichtenfeld, an 11-year-old triplet, shares the first and middle initials of an uncle she never met.
For a long time, she had known her mother had a brother, but she rarely seemed to speak of him.
It wasn't until Belinda was six that she and her sisters finally began to piece the story together. That's when they saw their mom read their uncle's name, Brian Frederick Goldberg, on television during the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
"I thought we just didn't know him or never met him," Belinda said. "When she went on TV, I finally understood."
Fifteen years after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the Lichtenfeld girls are among the growing next generation of 9/11 families -- children born after the attacks who will always be tied to the events of that day but have no memory of what happened.
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They did not live through that Tuesday morning when the airplanes crashed into skyscrapers. They never saw the billowing smoke, the people falling from the sky or the horror and heartache that gripped the streets below. And they did not live through the agonizing wait for that phone call, from a missing loved one, that never came.
They are a generation who never met their lost relatives but inherited the emotional toll of their death and the unspoken responsibility of keeping their legacy alive.
On a wall in her bedroom, Belinda has a pencil rubbing of her uncle's name from the 9/11 memorial. Her sisters, Iyla and Leah, have memorized their mother's stories from childhood and smile and laugh as they repeat them.
"When our mom and our grandparents tell us stories, we realize he was such an amazing man," Iyla said of her Uncle Brian, who was killed in the World Trade Center. He was just 26 years old. "It's really sad we never got to meet."
Artwork on the wall of Belinda Lichtenfeld including a tracing of her Uncle Brian Goldberg's name from the 9/11 memorial. Brian Goldberg died in the World Trade Center. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Telling children born after Sept. 11 that they have a relative who died in the attacks has been difficult experience for many parents, said Eileen Kennedy-Moore, a clinical psychologist in Princeton who has counseled 9/11 families and survivors.
Parents must strike a delicate balance between conveying their emotions and explaining why the story matters without scaring kids to the point that they don't want to go to New York City or walk into tall buildings.
It's critical that parents have a message, whether it be that every day is a gift or that families pull together in tough times, and follow their children's lead when it comes to offering specific details, she said.
"They will tell you how much they can handle by the questions they ask," she added.
Perhaps most importantly, parents should understand that it's normal if their children don't get emotional about a relative who was killed on 9/11, she said.
"The problem is for the kids this is history and for the parents this is real life," Kennedy-Moore said. "In some sense this is a little bit like saying you have a relative who died in World War II. It doesn't have the same punch as it does for somebody who was there experiencing the loss."
Teaching the Lichtenfeld girls about their uncle and 9/11 has never been easy, said their mother, Shari Goldberg. She worried they were too young for her to introduce a deceased relative killed in a horror story she still struggles to cope with as an adult.
"For a long time, until very recently I would never tell stories about him," she said. "I didn't want them to know I had a brother because they were too young. I didn't really know as a parent how I would explain that to them."
A decade and a half after Brian Goldberg's death, Shari Golberg still cries when she talks about her brother. But she tries to find optimism in the hope that her daughter's can learn from their mother's sorrow.
"People always wait to say they are sorry, they wait to say we should talk, they wait to say we should make things better," she said. "But the time is now. This is your chance to love. That's what I want my daughters to know."
The baby brother
As a child growing up in Queens, N.Y., Goldberg always wanted a younger brother or sister. Her wish finally came true on the day before Halloween in 1974, and the seven-year-old instantly became a "little mommy" who doted on her adorable baby brother.
"I loved him immediately," she said, flipping through baby pictures in a photo album at her Robbinsville home. "I was comfortable holding him, hugging him, picking him up, feeding him his bottle. We shared a bedroom, so his crib was right in my room. I loved that."
Julie Chertoff grew up in the apartment building across the street from the Goldbergs and remembers that Goldberg always ensured her brother felt included, despite their age difference.
"There were so many times that we would all be playing together, even though Shari and I kind of wanted to do our own thing," Chertoff said. "We would take him to the park, and she was very protective of him and really tried to do the right thing by him all of the time."
Shari Goldberg and her brother Brian Goldberg in 1997. Brian Goldberg died in the World Trade Center. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) On Brian's 21st birthday, his big sister bought him his first legal drink, followed by several more, at a club near Route 9 in Sayreville. She vividly remembers the ride home, imitating his favorite cartoon characters from his childhood.
"We had a crazy fun time," she said.
By 2001, Goldberg's little brother was 26, married to his high school sweetheart and determined to someday own a Mercedes, she said. He had an MBA from Fordham University and intensely focused on his new job in finance at the twin towers.
On the morning of Sept. 11, Brian reported to his job as a financial analyst at Fiduciary Trust International on the 90th floor of the south tower. He was still in the building when the plane smashed through the windows.
The aftermath
In the weeks that followed 9/11, Goldberg said she struggled to cope. Joseph Lichtenfeld became her rock.
In perhaps an odd twist of fate, Lichtenfeld, who had casually dated Goldberg for a few months, worked on the 47th floor of the same building as her brother and occasionally bumped into him.
Lichtenfeld was running about 30 minutes late on Sept. 11 and saw the north tower on fire from the window of his train from Matawan. He decided to disembark at the Grove Street station in Jersey City and watched in disbelief as a plume of smoke blew out of his building, too.
"I saw a fireball and heard a thud, and I was like, 'what was that?" Lichtenfeld recalled. "And the lady next to me said 'a plane hit it.'"
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While the Goldberg family held out hope that Brian Goldberg had survived, Lichtenfeld knew that hope was lost, he said. In the days that followed, he comforted Shari Goldberg and answered phone calls.
By the summer of 2002, they were engaged. They married in 2003, and, by the middle of 2004, she was pregnant.
The next generation
Iyla, Leah and Belinda arrived in January 2005.
Shari's parents, Jerry and Marilyn, were the first to talk to the girls about their uncle, showing pictures and telling stories. They told their grandchildren about their tremendous love for their son and celebrated his life at every opportunity, Goldberg said.
But the young girls still didn't really understand what happened to their uncle, they said. That confusion may have stemmed from Shari's reluctance to talk about her brother.
These days, while the family continues to shield the girls from the horiffic details of 9/11, they talk about Brian and focus on the stories of brave first responders and tales of survival.
The triplets, too, have done their part to avoid aspects of the attacks that might be upsetting. One of them once asked to leave her classroom when a teacher was showing photos from a 9/11 book, and another passed on a family trip the 9/11 museum out of fear it would scare her.
But the girls haven't shied away from what they see as a responsibility to share their family's story. At school, they have often been asked to talk about what it's like to be in a 9/11 family. They've written stories about their family's experience and try to illustrate a sadness they say other students don't fully comprehend.
"They know that something bad happened," Iyla said. "But they don't feel it."
Every year, the family visits the 9/11 memorial in Marlboro, and they plan to continue remembering the day even as others put it further in the rear view mirror, their father said.
"It will always be part of our process," Lichtenfeld said. "With the girls going forward, there is a new generation that will carry it forward."
Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.