By:Jonann Brady
Joel Miller remembered
Joel Miller liked to gaze through binoculars out his window at work. From his vantage point on the 97th floor of One World Trade Center, he would take in the skyline and track small piper planes. His wife, Margie Sivin-Miller, doesn't know if he saw anything coming on Tuesday, Sept. 11. Joel Miller, who would have turned 56 last Monday, is among the missing.
"I feel like a cowboy with two guns, but instead I've got two phones in my hands," said Sivin-Miller. "But the call you're waiting for doesn't come."
The family held a memorial for Miller on Sunday, Sept. 23 at the Baldwin Jewish Center.
Sivin-Miller and Miller were both widowed when they met about five years ago at the Baldwin Jewish Center. She is a real estate broker and Hebrew school teacher. He was, ironically, a disaster recovery specialist at the insurance firm Marsh and McClennan. Both were presidents at the synagogue and both had children from their previous marriages.
"When I think of him, he took me in with my two kids and cousin," said Sivin-Miller, who was left homeless by a fire in 1997. "He went to every concert, every football game. He was there for every kid."
Miller's son from his first marriage, Adam, is a 24-year-old senior at Oklahoma State. Sivin-Miller's sons, Maxwell, 23, is a student at Fordham law school and Justin, 21, is finishing his senior year at Oneonta State. Jared Rosenblum, Sivin-Miller's 24-year-old cousin and a music teacher at Lawrence-Woodmere High School, also lived with the couple.
Sivin-Miller recalled once when Rosenblum was practicing with his barbershop quartet in the living room. She was on the phone with Miller at work, and he put the singers on speakerphone for his co-workers to hear. At the end of the song, his floor erupted in applause.
"He would do things like that," said Sivin-Miller. "He was sweet and kind and gentle and unassuming. He knew every line to every joke."
Sivin-Miller is grateful for the support she has received from friends, family, her husband's company, and even the local police. Last week, she traveled into New York for a briefing held by Marsh and McClennan, where she exchanged information and phone numbers with a number of families in the same position.
"It was weird," she said. "You developed this major bond with people from the same floor. You'd say, 'I'm 97.' And there was this camaraderie"
She also praised officers from the First Precinct, who helped her with the unenviable task of gathering DNA evidence. They came to the house and collected razors, toothbrushes, and hairbrushes to take to the city for her. "They couldn't have been kinder or more accommodating," she said.
With a quick sense of humor and easy smile, Sivin-Miller appeared deceptively calm, but admitted she was "cried out." She called meeting Joel "a second chance" for both of them, and with all three kids set to finish college this year, the couple was looking forward to working less, and having more time together.
"We would joke that now we were old enough to go to the elder hostels. We talked about traveling to London," said Sivin-Miller. "It's not fair. It's not fair to anyone."
