Fleur de Lisa

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them. ~ Isak Dinesen

This is Babita Guman’s story. It is my great honor to tell it. I hope that the sorrow of her loss may be eased, but the memories never fade of this great woman.

September 11, 2001 We woke up that morning mere babes, innocent, naive, and perhaps blissfully ignorant of what lie ahead of us that day.

Babita Girjamatie Guman, age 33, worked on the 97th Floor in the southern tower of WTC as a computer specialist for Fiduciary Trust Company International.

At 9:03 AM, a jet slammed into the southwest face of the tower, creating an impact hole that extended from the 78th to 84th floors. The impact rocked the tower, causing it to sway several feet.

Babita Roopnarain and her family arrived from her native Guyana in 1983. After graduating from Walton High School, she earned a degree in computer science from Long Island University. It was her dream to become a teacher; in fact she was scheduled to take a Board of Education test the week following the attacks. Guman was last seen on the ground floor of WTC Tower 2.

The South Tower began its lethal collapse at 9:59 AM.bout 6 seconds later, the top was completely swallowed up by the massive and growing dust cloud.

Babita was married to a loving and adoring husband, John (Deodat) for over 10 years. They had two beloved little girls, Christina, age 7, and Malissa, age 6. She was known as a take-charge go-getter, working full time while taking graduate classes at Pace University. Babita possessed a drive to get ahead, to have some of the nicer things in life for her family. She was planning to move up from their one-bedroom Bronx starter home to a five-bedroom place in a Westchester suburb. Her soft side tempered this drive, as she was compassionate and witty, reaching out to assist others, care for her family or share her warm smile.

Deodat Guman said that he decided to keep her memory alive by etching a portrait of her onto his body. The tattoo, a headshot covering the left side of his back from the middle of his rib cage to neck, has a backdrop of the Twin Towers. “It’s my way of immortalizing her,” he said.

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief, but gratitude. ~ Thornton Wilder

Babita’s husband wrote this tribute to her:

To my loving Bebe (Babita) there is not a day or night goes by that I don’t think about you. I miss you so much I can’t begin to tell you how much. The kids talk about you every day Christina and Malissa. If I did not have them I would have be with you today. I can’t tell anyone how I feel and so I try to go on like every thing is fine. I found someone a little like you. She is very nice, but I still think of you all the time I will try to live on till I can I can be with you again, if God will let it be. I love you so much you will never know.

Yours always, Johnwa.

Nobody ever told me that grief felt so like fear. ~ C.S. Lewis

It is my fondest wish that no family will have to know of this pain again. The trauma, fear, grief and then perhaps, finally, the recovery that September 11, 2001 has brought to us all, in varying degrees, is unlike any that we have ever known.

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