I am honored to write this tribute to a man whom I have never met.
I found out about him at the 2,996 project a couple of weeks ago.
John Frederick Rhodes, Jr. was a family man.
What I found interesting about him was that he didn't take up golf until he was in his forties, that he loved learning new things, and that he enjoyed the hustle and bustle of his work. Those who knew him said he had a great sense of humor, but mostly he was a family man.
He was a senior vice president for Aon Risk Services, where he had worked for 12 years. He didn't seem to mind the 90 minute commute to work every day.
I imagine he was a very patient man. You'd have to be to not mind a 90 minute commute from NJ to NY and back again at the end of the day.
Even more important to him than his job or golf was his family. I found out that John scheduled his business trips so he would return home on Fridays and not have to work on the weekend. His daughter, Deborah, fondly remembers her father dancing with her in the kitchen when she was a girl, her feet on top of his. He continued dancing like this with her into her adulthood.
He said to his wife "Make sure you take care of family, because without family you have nothing."
Being well traveled, John believed that the journey was the point, not the destination. His family said of him that he lived for the moment.
Which is probably why, in the end, he chose to do what he did.
I imagine that being a senior vice president, John carried a great deal of responsibility for the company, their clients, and their employees and staff. Mr. Rhodes took it a step further on a very personal level.
He stayed behind when he could have fled.
He was on the 93rd floor of Tower 2, the south tower, the day that it happened. No doubt he had already heard of the north tower's hit 18 minutes earlier. But 18 minutes isn't really that much time for people to interpret and understand what had happened. I wonder if someone had called him to tell him, to warn the company to get their people out.
I wonder what he could see from the windows of the south tower.
I read several online articles about that day, in that tower. There was a lot of confusion in the south tower even before it was hit. People were being evacuated from the south tower following the 8:46 impact of the north tower. Then, announcements over the PA said that the south tower was secure.
They'd had fire drills regularly in the Twin Towers ever since the 1993 terrorist attack, so the employees knew what to do.
John could have taken an elevator down to safety along with other personnel during those first minutes after the north tower was hit, but he told a colleague to get on the elevator and get out of the building.
"The man got on the elevator and my dad went the other way," said his daughter, Deborah. "He never got out."
Eighteen minutes later, hijacked Flight 175 hit the south tower at 9:03 a.m. The impact left a hole from the 78th floor to the 84th floor.
John was on the 93rd floor. He would have felt the building sway as the blast rocked the tower. At that point, at least one of the evacuation routes to the upper 30floors was still open. Not everyone was aware of that one stairwell where 18 people were able to escape from the upper levels, as reported by 911research.com.
I can't even imagine the details of what happened next.
What does one do when one is faced with death, and the chance to help others who are also facing death?
Do you flee or stand firm?
Whether one is a senior vice president of a global company dealing with environmental risks, or one of the lower paid waiters in the Windows on the World restaurant (107th floor of the north tower), the critical question is asked. We don't know for certain what we would do until faced with the situation that calls for courage and sacrifice.
When the question was asked of him, John Rhodes chose to stay behind. His daughter said that he would probably have been helping the women on the floor.
That says a lot about the kind of husband and father he was. He loved his wife dearly, and he knew there would be husbands out there worried about their wives, or fathers praying for their sons and daughters, that they wouldn't be alone at such a fateful and frightening hour. John would have assured them, consoled them, and encouraged them in their last moments alive.
It's what he would have wanted for his own wife, or his daughter and son had they been there instead of him.
His family said he was a giver. He sacrificed for others all the time. It makes sense that he would want to help others during a time of confusion and panic while facing the ultimate terror of being trapped above burning concrete and steel nearly a hundred stories off the ground.
John Frederick Rhodes was only 57 years old when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed around him and his co-workers at 10:05 a.m. on September 11, 2001.
He is missed by his wife Linda, his daughter Deborah, his son John, his father John, his sister Elizabeth, and his daughter-in-law, and grandchildren.
I didn't know you, Mr. Rhodes, but your memory lives on here, in this one tiny point of hyperspace, as a far away twinkling star. I know your family loved you dearly, and have missed you greatly these past five years.
No doubt your family and friends could have written a more personal tribute than I, with their memories of you reminding us of our own fathers and brothers and sons. It is enough that we know your name and that you lived and died a family man.
There is meaning and purpose in that.
The poster above is created by Alex Spektor, entitled The Sun.
You can find it at this website.
The 2996: A Tribute to the Victimes of 9/11 was created by D.C. Roe. If you are interested, you can also view the list of over 3000 bloggers who are paying tribute to the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It takes a minute to load up.
Jackie has already written a beautiful tribute to a police officer at Hope Floats, and so has Natalie at Interface. Guido wrote one about Norberto Hernandez. If you are participating in this project, please leave your link to that entry in your comment.
Thank you.
Thank you, Donna, for making the photo of Mr. Rhodes extra special for this tribute.
