Life is Too Short: Stories of Transformation and Renewal after 9/11

“Wendy Healy has written a fine book that reminds us of the good that rose in the face of absolute evil on 9/11 and the stunned days that followed. We now too often forget that good, but Ms. Healy’s book is here to remind us with quiet words of truth. Once reminded, we feel it again and it is all the more welcome to those of us who still grieve those who were lost.”

– Michael Daly, New York Daily News

“Wendy Healy is just in time for the upcoming ten-year anniversary of 9/11 with a moving account of survivors of that day and their stories. While we learn much from studies and accurate reporting on what lead up to the terrorist attack on the towers that day, the personal accounts of the horror and suffering, but yet, too, the bravery, courage and will to survive are great lessons for us all. This captures the years of struggle and lives of those who survived that day–a marvelous book.”

– Michael Plekon, Ph.D., Sociology/Anthropology Professor,
Baruch College of the City University of New York

“I lost my father, Jeffrey E LeVeen Sr., who was a senior vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald, and know the pain of working through grief, the fears of returning to the workplace, and the struggle to reclaim our lives. I know firsthand how difficult it is to move forward from personal tragedy. The stories of those affected by 9/11 in Life is Too Short are truly an inspiration to 9/11 survivors and anyone who has suffered a loss. Moving on after a tragedy like this is a true challenge and these stories capture the spirit of those struggles.”

– Jeff LeVeen

“As we remember these powerful stories of transformation, we celebrate that the breakdowns in our life are an opportunity for a break-through to more. Each one of us is called on our journey together to live what these stories call us to believe: that our lives are not for our own sake but for the sake of others.”

– Fr. Christopher Keenan, OFM
Chaplain, Fire Department of New York

“On September 11 we saw the towers fall from my office window in Manhattan. We also were present as many people’s lives and expectations were transformed by the experience of this huge communal tragedy. I served as Lutheran bishop in New York in the time of this wound to our city’s soul. Wendy Healy served at my side as the communication’s director for our Office of Bishop in the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She captured the stories in the days following the attack. As she encountered many whose lives were altered forever I observed that Wendy herself embodied a life and vocation in transition, seared by the pain of so many in this time of tragedy. Her own story, her own tranformation is embedded in the stories she tells (among them, the story of my own son Jeremy). It is now ten years later. I am grateful to Wendy Healy for documenting the grace of transformation that rises out of chaos and tragedy. Ten years later she is still telling the story of growth and transformation rising from Ground Zero.”

– The Rev. Dr. Stephen Paul Bouman,
Former Bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Executive Director of Congregational and Synodical Mission, ELCA