Dennis Buckley, 38, worked as a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald and was the father of three daughters, aged from 22 months to 6 years. His office was on the 104th floor of the North Tower at the World Trade Center. On the morning of September 11, his wife remembered him saying, “Bye, talk to you later,” before leaving for work. That was the last time she heard his voice. Just hours later, two hijacked planes hit the Twin Towers.
Twelve days after the tragedy, their oldest daughter, Mary Kate, turned six. Mrs. Buckley decided to still hold her birthday party. “She’s six,” she said. “Not having it would be like taking it away from her.”
Dennis was born on Long Island and went to Lynbrook High School in New York before graduating from the University of Maryland in 1986. Two years later, he met his future wife at The Big Cahuna, a now-closed club in Lower Manhattan. That night, Dennis and his close friends, Frank Busso and Peter Rainis, drove Kathleen and her friends home to Queens, but no one exchanged phone numbers.
“The next night, Pete came back to leave a note for one of my friends because he liked her. When we all went out again, Dennis and I clicked right away and started dating, while the other two never saw each other again,” she recalled.
They married in October 1992 and moved to Chatham in 1994.
“I feel so lucky to have met him. I wish we had more time together, but I feel blessed. Even knowing what I know now, I’d still choose to do it all over again,” his wife said.
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