the last call

And it's time again for StoryCorps, we've been hearing from this oral history project as it crisscrosses the country. In New York city, it's gathering interviews with families and friends who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center. StoryCorps wants to collect at least one recording for each of the nearly 3000 lives lost on September 11th. Here Monique Ferrer speaks about Michael Trinidad. When I met Michael, I was 14 years old. And I knew that he was gonna be my boyfriend. We got married when I was 19, and we were both kids we really didn't know what next, you know, get married and now what? When we were divorced I remembered the kids telling me that their father confided in them with a secret, and they didn't wanna tell me, and I quote, what's the secret? And they say, "Well, daddy still loves you, but he doesn't want us to tell you. 'And I said, well, I know, and I love him too. But Mummy and Daddy are gone their separate ways but we'll always be a family, we'll always be your mom and dad. On 911, I remembered getting up to take my daughter, she had a doctor's appointment, so my daughter was home. At 9:04, I got a phone call, and it was Michael, and he was calling from the 103rd floor. And the first thing that he said was "I am calling to say goodbye." And I said, "Why? Where are you going?" And he said, "Well, I'm in the building that was just hit by a plane." He just wanted to tell me how much he loved the children, and he says, you know, I also wanna tell you that I always loved you. And I said I know, the kids told me. And I am remarried, so I asked my husband to get on the phone, and I, I thought maybe my husband could talk him into finding an exit. And when my husband got on the phone, he asked my husband if he would be my children's father, and my husband said, you're gonna be coming home, you're gonna be their dad, and I, I'm their dad too. And he's like I don't think I'm gonna make it. And, my daughter was there and she saw me becoming a little hysterical and I didn't know whether to put her on, 'cause I didn't know how he would react. He thought she was at school. It just really breaks my heart that he's not here for them. It's like the only thing on his mind was to tell the kids that he loved them. And I tell the kids this, every day, everything you do, just think about your dad. And the thing is that my two children look just like him, and they talk like him, and they joke like him. So it's like he's there, you know, I see him in them every day and as much as he used to drive me crazy. He was my family and my best friend. That's Monique Ferrer remembering Michael Trinidad. These 911 stories will eventually be kept at the World Trade Center Memorial Museum, and all StoryCorps tapes are archived at the Library of Congress. You can schedule your interview at NPR.org