SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WTVF) — Sisters Lauren Fletcher and Kaitlynn Meisenheimer remember September 11, 2001 vividly. Lauren was 14 years old and Kaitlynn was 12.
It started as a typical day — the girls went to school and their father, firefighter Ray Meisenheimer, went to work at Rescue Company 3 in New York.
"If you speak about him, he won't be forgotten and that's the battle we're fighting 22 years later," said Lauren. "People are forgetting."
Ray Meisenheimer was a firefighter with Rescue Company 3 in New York City.
"[He was] larger than life," said Kaitlynn. "He was a big guy but he was a teddy bear."
Despite his intimidating appearance, Meisenheimer was beloved in his Long Island community.
"If you had on a shirt that said Meisenheimer people would be like 'oh do you know Ray Meisenheimer? I knew him from this or I knew him from that'," said Kaitlynn.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, his company responded to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.
"So I was shocked when I got called to the library and my mom was there," said Lauren.
Hours, days, and weeks went by, but Ray Meisenheimer never returned home.
"I remember somebody coming to the house saying 'it's no longer a rescue mission, it's now a recovery - they're not pulling people out alive'," Lauren said.
For years, the girls wondered what happened to their father on the morning of September 11.
"But I think the hardest part is there's almost no proof he was there," said Kaitlynn.
No proof until a discovery years later. A piece of his clothing, his hood, was found in a stairwell of the South Tower.
"It was assumed that because they were a rescue company that specialized in trench collapses that they were heading as close as they could to where the plane hit to figure out 'can we get above it? What can we do to get those people?'" Lauren said.
"September first is really tough day because it's the anticipation of what's to come and then September twelfth we all just go back to normal and I think we do a good job of smiling through it, but I have a wedding coming up and my dad's not walking me down the aisle." Kaitlynn said.
Now 22 years later, the pain is still present. But the sisters find comfort in keeping their father's memory alive.
"It's more than remember on 9/11," Kaitlynn. "There's 365 days in the year that they deserve to be remembered, they deserve to be honored."
