Heroes Among Us: Honoring the 9/11 First Responders and Their Enduring Legacy
On September 11, 2001, we lost 412 first responders. 343 of those who lost their lives were firefighters, 37 were police officers of the Port Authority of New York and the New Jersey Police Department, 23 were police officers from the New York City Police Department, eight were emergency medical technicians and paramedics from private emergency services, and one of them was a patrolman from the New York Fire Patrol.
412 first responders ran toward the chaos while everyone else was running away from it. 412 parents, spouses, kids, and friends who never had the chance to say their goodbyes to the ones they loved.
One of the firefighters who lost his life on September 11, 2001, was a man named Charles “Chucky” Mendez. Mendez was the uncle of Nikki, a young woman who turned to songwriting as a way to deal with the overwhelming emotions she was flooded with following the attacks. Nikki would go on to sing backup for Josh Groban, open for the Barenaked Ladies, be a regular National Anthem singer for the New York Mets, and make it through the Hollywood rounds on Season 11 of American Idol.
It was during Hollywood Week at American Idol that Nikki met fellow contestant, Joe Banau. Joe grew up in a musical household as his father was a touring musician and as an adult, Joe would go on to play guitar for Christian contemporary and worship artists before accepting a position as a church music director.
In 2014, Joe married Rachel, a woman who’d lost her first husband, a firefighter and a police officer, who was involved in an accidental off-duty death. Rachel was still struggling with the grief of her first husband's death and realized that she hadn't fully allowed herself to grieve.
Through her healing process, Rachel sat down with Joe, and together they began writing out the lyrics to a song they would call "Sirens." Joe realized that "Sirens" needed something to take the song to the next level and he reached out to Nikki, the woman who had lost her uncle in the September 11th attacks, and asked if she would sing the song with him.
In June of 2016, the song “Sirens” was completed. Little did anyone know that just four days after the completion of the song, a mass shooting would take place in an Orlando nightclub, and then a month later a sniper would kill five police officers in Dallas. The pain wouldn't end there. Ten days after the sniper attack in Dallas, three more officers would be lost in Baton Rouge. Horrible acts of violence have continued in the years since and more and more first responders have lost their lives trying to protect the innocent.
“Sirens” has become something of an anthem for first responders, a song that they can play for their family and loved ones to remind them, "When you hear sirens... don't worry for me."
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Gallery Credit: Isabel Sepulveda