Surviving the Fall

Ten years later, Tom Junod revisits “The Falling Man.” “Now Jonathan is buried in Mt. Kisco, next to his mother, who died in 2009. But Gwendolyn doesn’t visit him there, because he is not there, any more than he is there in Richard Drew’s photograph. ‘I believe in the trinity of the human being — mind, body and spirit. And I know that after the death of the body, he’s not there. He’s in God’s hands.’ In the same way, he’s not in the photograph of the Falling Man. ‘People have to get over wondering who this man was,’ she says. ‘He’s everybody. We’re so stuck on who he was that we can’t see what’s right there in front of us. The photo’s so much bigger than any man, because the man in the photo is clearly in God’s hands. And it’s God who gives us the grace to go on.’ ” #Sept11

Author: Tom Junod
Source: Esquire
Published: Sep 9, 2011
Length: 7 minutes (1,889 words)
Read the story