David Spampinato was just four years old when his dad was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. But it took a few years for young David to begin to comprehend the enormity of his family’s loss.

“The gravity of it came when I started playing baseball more,” he told The Stream. “All the dads would coach, and I just started having the realization that I wouldn’t get to play catch with my dad like the other kids.”

He then began to ask painful questions that no child should have to ponder.

Why did this happen? David recalled thinking as a boy. Why did I have to suffer this kind of loss?

Donald Spampinato was the kind of dad every little boy wanted. A former teacher who became a Wall Street bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, his presence soared over his three sons much like the building he worked in – the World Trade Center’s North Tower – dominated the lower Manhattan skyline.

“Don was definitely born to be a dad and born to be a dad of boys,” his wife, Laurie Spampinato, told The Stream. “He made it look very easy.”

While David only got to spend four-plus years with his dad, his memories of growing up on Long Island are both happy and treasured.

“On my fourth birthday, I got my first bike,” he said. “I just remember being super excited about it in our driveway, but our house had a very steep hill.

“All of a sudden I kind of forget to brake and I’m rolling down the hill,” he continued with a laugh. “So my older brother yells out, ‘David’s going down the hill!’ My dad then cuts across the driveway, runs across the front lawn, and just picks me up right off the bike.”

Running was second nature to Donald, who competed in triathlons while ensuring that his grueling training schedule never interfered with raising David, his older brother, Donald, or younger brother, Peter.

“Don was a very humble, hard-working, loyal man who loved his family before anything else,” Laurie said. “He would have done anything for us. Anything.”

Terrorists using hijacked planes to attack New York, the Pentagon and most likely the White House before crashing in a Pennsylvania field was unthinkable in the fall of 2001. Donald, however, was one of very few to have already experienced the evils of radical Islamic terrorism on American soil. On February 26, 1993, he was working on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center when he heard and felt a large blast.

At first, he and his coworkers thought a transformer had exploded. They had no idea that al-Qaeda had just launched a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers that wound up killing six people and injuring more than a thousand others.

“Within two hours, he was at my office with soot on his face and his white shirt all messed up,” Laurie recalled. “He even had a piece of glass in the cuff of his pants.”

Donald, who told his wife that he planned to buy a new shirt before working out at the gym to “get the soot out of his lungs,” never said much about the 104-story downward trek he made with his colleagues to escape danger. While harrowing memories of the 1993 bombing would never fade, the next eight-plus years were mostly business as usual for him and his colleagues.

“I think we kind of rested in the comfort of, ‘We can handle this,'” Laurie said. “I don’t think any of us really thought something like 9/11 could happen.”

On September 10, 2001, David remembers being excited about surprising his dad with a birthday gift that had unexpectedly arrived five days early.

“When he got home from work, we gave him his fortieth birthday present,” David said. “It was our last night together.”

The next morning, three little boys from Long Island lost their father during the worst terrorist attack in American history. The Spampinatos are among thousands of families to spend every day of the past 23 years grieving their murdered loved ones or coping with 9/11-related health ailments.

“I don’t have any memory of hearing the news. I just remember being confused,” David said. “I have no recollection of the funeral at all. It’s almost like that period of time – I don’t understand why or how – I have no core memories between 9/11 and that winter.”

As David and his brothers slowly started to understand the tragic events of 9/11, they also began to display striking similarities to their fallen father. It comes across not only in their athletic prowess, but how they treat others and handle their achievements.

Asked how he keeps his father’s legacy alive, David said simply, “To not brag about myself, be humble, work really hard, be who I am and try to be like my dad.”

David, who now works for Major League Baseball’s New York Mets, has always thought of his dad while watching or playing sports. Over the years, that has helped him, Donald, and Peter cope with thoughts of what might have been if their dad hadn’t been at work on September 11, 2001.

“Sports in the backyard was always our distraction,” David said. “My youngest brother has virtually no memories of my dad. We all have varying degrees of memories … (My dad) worked very hard but he was always ‘family first.'”

The Spaminato family’s strong Catholic faith has also been a driving force to help keep pushing forward since losing Donald 23 years ago.

“They never ran away from it,” Laurie said about her sons tackling the tragedy of 9/11 head on. “From the beginning, we said, ‘We have to walk through this.'”

Now a grown man in his late twenties, David Spampinato spends each 9/11 anniversary reflecting on the four precious years he got to spend with his dad. Whether he’s watching a ballgame or having dinner at his dad’s  favorite Italian restaurant, David stays close to his family and honors the man who gave everything to protect and provide for him and his brothers: Donald F. Spampinato, Jr.

“During the weeks leading up, he’s on my mind a lot,” David said. “The traditions have evolved, but it’s a hard day. The emotions come in waves.”

Please join The Stream in praying for the Spampinatos and all families of 9/11 victims. We will never forget.

 

Tom Sileo is a contributing senior editor of The Stream. He is the author of the newly released I Have Your Back, Be Bold and co-author of Three Wise Men, Brothers Forever, 8 Seconds of Courage and Fire in My Eyes. Follow Tom on X @TSileo and The Stream at @Streamdotorg.