Your Father's Voice: Letters for Emmy About Life with Jeremy--and Without Him After 9/11

by Lyz Glick, Dan Zegart

It seemed like just plain bad luck. On September 11, 2001, Jeremy Glick boarded United Flight 93 only because a fire at Newark Airport had prevented him from flying out the day before. That morning, he called his wife, Lyz, to tell her the plane had been hijacked and that he and a group of others were going to storm the cockpit, an effort that doomed Glick and his fellow passengers yet doubtless saved lives on the ground and instantly became known worldwide as a heroic moment of resistance. But Lyz wanted the couple's daughter, Emmy, only three months old when the plane crashed, to learn much more of her father's story than just the ending. Your Father's Voice narrates Lyz's struggle to come to grips with her husband's death in a series of letters from Lyz to Emmy that give a wrenching but clear-eyed account of Lyz's first years without Jeremy. The letters also portray the rebellious but charismatic star athlete who became Lyz's high school sweetheart, a national collegiate judo champion, and finally her husband. We see Lyz's medical ordeal as she tries to bring Emmy into the world, Jeremy's tender nurturing of the premature baby, and the agony of his final telephone call from the ill-fated plane.

But it is during the first frantic months after the terrorist attack---as she fends off the media and fights to get the truth about what happened on Flight 93---that Lyz realizes that she and Jeremy are still deeply connected, that his love for her and Emmy endures and teaches. Soon Lyz can write to Emmy that she believes it was destiny, not luck, that put a world-class martial artist like Jeremy on an airplane with other men and women who were also determined to fight back.

Through it all, Lyz pragmatically details the challenges of a single parent raising a daughter in the aftermath of horrific tragedy, and urges Emmy to listen for what Lyz can still hear when the wind is her father's voice.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

Reviews

[Megan L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading these letters that Lyz wrote to her daughter following her fathers death on 9/11 makes your heart ache with a sense of stolen moments and a newborn who was robbed of having her father. Beautifully written. Makes you realize the need to enjoy every moment that we are here on earth.

[Stephanie Ziegler]

This book is a tear-jerker from the first chapter. I can never say that I understand what Lyz Glick went through, is still going through. I have lost loved one’s but by natural causes. Lyz Glick mourns in a completely different way.

If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself!

Until next time, take life one page at a time!

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. I could not put it down. I read it in two days because it held my attention. Very touching 9/11 story of someone I know who has been through so much. Thumbs up to my neighbor for writing this book.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is in letter format from mother to daughter and an easy read. I really enjoyed it and it was interesting to read the wife/mother's perspective. Jeremy Glick was one of the main people who took down the terrorists on United flight 93.

[Bryna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as inspiring as Let's Roll by Todd Beamer's wife, but another interesting insight to a woman who lost her husband on Flight 93. I read this book because he was living in my home town and wanted to hear his story.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The honesty in the writing was so pure, I felt like Lyz Glick was someone I knew. A tremendously brave story to share, and she did it beautifully.

[Andrea A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow is all I can say. A totally senseless death. I could not fathom what Lyz went thru but these letters to her daughter really makes you feel...Great book.