Out of the Ashes

Annette DiGiacamo’s personal 9/11 experience inspired her to become a hospital chaplain

In her former life, Annette DiGiacamo (right) never had enough. “I felt I never had enough time or money, or ever did anything good enough. I didn’t have true happiness,” she says. But on Sept. 11, 2001, everything changed.

“It took being two stories underneath the World Trade Center’s North Tower for me to start an inner journey to peace,” she says.

Once a nationally known eye care consultant who lived in Palm Beach, Fla., and traveled the country while meeting physicians, giving speeches and writing books, DiGiacamo now enjoys her life as a chaplain with pastoral care. She lives in Bangor with a spiritual man she married less than a year ago. Most importantly, she is profoundly tranquil, thanks to the events and aftermath of that fateful day seven years ago.

Her journey

Annette DiGiacamo went home to an empty house in Palm Beach, Fla, after 9/11. Then a widow, she struggled in the months that followed as she slowly began a journey to inner peace. Today, she lives a simple life in Bangor with her husband Frank, a spiritual man she married less than a year ago.

Her 9/11 Story
DiGiacamo was consulting with an eye doctor in the North Tower when she heard someone yelling for everyone to leave the building. Not knowing what had happened, she followed people out into the mall area of the twin towers, eventually reaching outside.

“It was eerily silent,” she says. “All you could hear were feet on pavement and the swirl of papers in the air.” She thought about returning for her purse but stopped to ask God for guidance. “I wasn’t particularly spiritual at the time, but I prayed instinctively and He said to me, ‘Stay in the moment and know I am with you.’ ” With that she watched the second plane hit the South Tower.

Confusion ensued. She was in the middle of it with no money, no credit cards, no identification and no idea how to get to her son’s city apartment where she was staying. Luckily, the day’s events brought out kindness—one gentleman gave her a map and $20 when she asked for directions.

On the walk to the apartment she stopped at a TV monitor. It was 9:35 a.m., and she learned for the first time what had happened. As she stood in shock another woman came along. “That’s enough of that. Let’s walk together,” the woman said.

“Just like it says in Deuteronomy, we walked two-by-two,” DiGiacamo says. “I think about that now when I’m the chaplain for the trauma department. We walk two-by-two with the patients and their families. We keep them focused as they walk through the darkest hours of their lives.”

Through the generosity of strangers, she made it to Florida a couple days later. For a week she couldn’t speak. Then, she stuttered—a huge part of her business depended on her speech. “I think it was God’s way of saying, ‘You’ve spoken enough. It’s time for you to listen,’ ” she says.

The Days After
DiGiacamo found solace in prayer, and her spiritual connection changed dramatically. When she was able to work again she no longer found it stimulating. Her most fulfilling work came when she talked to people going through personal crises. “I was having conversations I never had before in the business setting,” she says. With work no longer her driving force, she relocated to the Lehigh Valley to be close to her daughter.

She was playing golf when she heard about the hospital’s pastoral education program and knew immediately it was her calling. She applied and was accepted, and her own experience gives her unique perspective as she comforts patients and educates other chaplains.

“If it hadn’t been for Sept. 11, I would’ve never been a chaplain. It’s truly a privilege to be at the bedside of the patients as they lament, ‘Why me?’ It’s an honor to be a comfort to patients and their families as they live through their own 9/11.”

Looking back, DiGiacamo sees why her former life needed to happen so she could be fully present in her current life. “It wasn’t an easy trip, she says, “but it was worth it to get here.”

—Amy Satkofsky

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