By Rubin E. Grant
Melissa Turnage has shared the story of one of the darkest days of her life numerous times in interviews and speaking engagements.
She will do it again as the guest speaker at the Patriot Day Ceremony on Sept. 11 at the Soho Square Plaza in Homewood. The cities of Homewood, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills participate in the special 9/11 ceremony each year. It will be held from 9 a.m. until 10 a.m.
“I am honored to be doing this,” Turnage said. “I do have a voice, considering what happened to me and my family.”
Turnage’s son, Adam White, died in the infamous 2001 attacks on the famed World Trade Center twin towers in New York City.
White, 26, was an employee of the banking and investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald. He was in the north tower.
“He was at work on the 101st floor, close to where the plane struck,” Turnage said. “The rest is history. Cantor Fitzgerald lost more employees than anyone.”
White and more than 2,700 others in the twin towers died in the smoke and flames.
“Every year I get a letter from the New York City mayor, it goes to all the families of the victims, asking if we want to come to New York to read the names on the 9/11 Memorial during the ceremony in New York,” Turnage said. “I’ve done it once, where I read his name.
“He was so much joy, energetic, fun and smart.”
Turnage wasn’t the first person to come to mind to speak at this year’s Patriot Day Ceremony. Her daughter Jen Groban, a personal training instructor and manager at Iron Tribe Fitness in Mountain Brook, was.
“My son-in-law is a firefighter, Chris Groban,” Turnage explained. “He was with Homewood for several years and is now with Station 1 in Birmingham. He still has a lot of friends from Homewood.
“The three stations (Homewood, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills) come together for this event and the captain from the Homewood station told him they were thinking about doing something different this year, having a speaker other than a politician. He asked him if his wife, Jen, who is my daughter, would do it because he knew her brother died in 9/11, but he told her Jen doesn’t do that kind of thing. He said his mother-in-law might be willing to do it. He asked me and I said yes.”
Turnage lives in Crestline in Mountain Brook. She is a master teacher in dance and is the co-founder and co-director of People in Motion, which provides dance and movement classes for seniors with mental or physical challenges. Presently, she is an artist in residence (dance/movement specialist) with Arts in Medicine at UAB Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Alabama.
Forgiveness
Turnage was living in Baltimore, Maryland, teaching at St. Paul’s School when the 9/11 tragedy unfolded. One of the topics she has spoken about in the years since it happened is forgiveness.
“The way that came about is right after 9/11 we were living in Baltimore,” Turnage said. “I don’t know how they knew, but a reporter from the Washington Post called me and said he knew I had lost a son in the attack and if he could interview me. I said no, but he said it might be helpful for a lot of people. I said, ‘Well if it’s going to be helpful, I’d do it.’
“He came down and in the interview he asked me ‘Do you think you’ll be able to forgive them.’ I told him I already did. That’s the first thing that came out of my mouth.
“He was surprised and said, ‘How?’ I told him in my adult life I have worked with a lot of children — and adults, all ages really — and I believed these men were wounded children. They grew up being taught certain things as a child and they believed what they were taught and they just acted out what they believed. It’s not the child’s fault that someone teaches them to hate.”
