A family's mourning, another's new day

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 represent tragedy for an entire nation. For Meghan Coombs, September 11^th marks not only a day of national mourning, but also a day of great personal sorrow.

Coombs’s father, Jeff, was a passenger on one of the fateful Los Angeles-bound flights that departed that morning, never to reach its destination in the Golden State.

Jeff Coombs was traveling both for business and pleasure. He had planned a two-week trip, divided half with business engagements as Vice President of a Compaq software department, and half with family time to be spent white water rafting in the bottom of the Grand Canyon with his wife’s brother-in-law.

Meghan Coombs, an eleven year-old sixth grader at the time, was not told of the attacks during school. It was her mother, Christie, who first learned of the attacks. Though the attacks happened in the morning hours, due to the imaginable chaos at the American Airlines offices, Christie Coombs carried the burden of worry until after one o’clock that afternoon.

“When [my mom] drove my dad to the airport that morning he was really tired,” Meghan Coombs recalls. Coombs said her mother, upon recognizing her husband’s flight number on television, called American Airlines in a panic to confirm that her husband was indeed on the plane.

“They said that he hadn’t boarded the flight. My mom was like, ‘Thank God he was tired. He definitely overslept while he was waiting,’” Coombs said.

Unfortunately for the Coombses, that was not the case. According to Coombs, about an hour after her first call, American Airlines called Christie to confirm that her husband did board his flight.

Coombs’s mother immediately called her children out of school. Yet, overcome by grief, Christie relied on two close friends to pick her children up and bring them back to the house.

Alarm bells rang in Coombs’s head as soon as the school’s office called her down for dismissal.

“I knew something was wrong because my mom would never take me out of school without telling me first, even if it was a sudden thing like, ‘Oh I forgot you had a dance appointment,’’ Coombs said. “I was always a worried little kid. I’ve always had anxiety. So I knew something was wrong right there from the get go.”

Her mother’s two friends who “were there looking pale white and distraught,” greeted Coombs in the office, Coombs recalled.

“I was like, ‘What’s wrong? Where’s my dad? Is he okay?’” Coombs said.

“Your mom’s just sick. She wants you to come home,” the women told the now “hysterical” Coombs.

The ride back to her house gave Coombs clarity on the situation. “On the way home, we were like two and a half miles away from my house on the main road off of my street and there were cars all backed up all through all the neighborhoods to my house,” Coombs said. “That’s when I knew that something huge and bad happened.”

“I live in Abington [Massachusetts]. My town’s really small so everyone knows everyone. Literally half the town was at my house,” Coombs said. “Our fire department, police department, priests, teachers, principles, town hall politicians, friends, family – everyone.”

In the weeks following Jeff’s passing, Christie’s friend, Donna, created a road race, all profits of which would go to the Jeffrey Coombs Foundation. The race earned over $50,000 its first year, Coombs said. The race has been run every year since.

In addition to sponsoring the road race, the Jeffrey Coombs Foundation sponsors a Christmastime “families of deployed troops dinner and silent auction,” held in the clubhouse at Gillette Stadium, according to Coombs. The foundation has drawn professional athletes from Boston teams to attend the auction.

Coombs created a series of “Summer’s End Concerts”, featuring over a dozen different musical acts playing on Abington’s Nisby Bandstand. Coombs plans the concert and books the musical acts herself each year.

Proceeds from the Jeffery Coombs Foundation help local families in need. The Foundation has supported families make their houses wheelchair accessible, make medical and mortgage payments and aid families stricken by trauma.

“We always get letters from people who we’ve done even small things for and they say, ‘Thank you so much, you have changed my life so much by doing this,’” Coombs said.

“I always say everything happens for a reason. It’s what I say all the time, no matter what,” Coombs said. “If something bad happens, something good has to come out of it, whether it’s something tiny or something big.”

Coombs still feels sadness over her father’s death, but has found some sense in the seemingly senseless tragedy.

It never gets easy, but it definitely gets easier to deal with your sadness and your grief,” Coombs said. “It sucks, and I would love to have grown up having a father, but I think there was a reason he passed away so that we could help all these other people that needed help.”