By:LARRY MAIER
The Old Testament's Book of Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything under the sun, including a time to be born and a time to die.
Moments before American Airlines Flight 11 struck Tower One at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Melanie Anne Brown drew her first precious breath.
The happy, healthy, 6-pound, 15-ounce, baby girl was born at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre at precisely 8:45 a.m. that Tuesday, just three minutes before the first terrorist attack.
Lisa Brown, Melanie's mom, said she will never forget the mix of emotions she felt that morning.
"I was just so happy when she was born," said Lisa, smiling and holding her new pride and joy. "And then a nurse told us that a plane had hit the Twin Towers."
Lisa watched the second airliner attack Tower Two from her delivery-room bed with her husband, Vinnie, her doctor, nurse and midwife. The terrible acts that caused the death and suffering of so many innocent people dashed the absolute joy she felt from bringing a new life into the world, but only temporarily.
When she looked at her beautiful newborn daughter, Lisa said, she was reminded that something good happened that day.
And Lisa hopes that her Melanie's birth and the births of thousands of other babies around the world that morning are a sign that a better world can emerge from the Sept. 11 tragedy. Lisa hopes that maybe, once the rubble is cleared, the dead are mourned, and America's enemies are brought to justice, Sept. 11 will be a day that marked a new beginning for the world.
"It is going to be a different world for our children, and as a mother, it makes me nervous," said Lisa, who also has a 7-year-old son, Nicholas, and a 3-year-old daughter Marissa. "But maybe, in the long run, it will be a better, safer world. Maybe that day marked a new beginning for all of us."
Melanie's grandmother Anne Demirkani said she knows that as her granddaughter grows up, she will have questions about the day she was born, and may feel badly that it was such a tragic time for so many.
"I'll tell her that for us it will always be a joyous day, but we will always remember what happened," Anne said.
Lisa will tell Melanie that, though their family was very happy that she arrived that day, the rest of the world was very sad.
"But," Lisa will add, "the whole world didn't know that you were born that day."
