One of Nancy Yambem’s many problems concerns her husband’s clothes.What does she do with a closet full of thousand-dollar suits? Her husband Jupiter was thebanquet manager at Windows on the World, the restaurant atop 1 wtc, and had to dress forpresidents, princes, rock stars and other celebrity customers. He bought one new suit eachyear, including a very sharp grey one in which he took a portrait. Nancy holds the frameup, wondering whether her tabletop memorial is too cluttered with photos and albums.
Today she has invited some people over for an Indian lunch and wine at a friend’splace, hosting a memorial service. A few have started trickling into the room, acomfortable lounge at Trump Towers, along the Hudson River. On the floor, her six-year-oldson, Santi, is playing with his new Harry Potter lego sets, all three gifts from thearriving guests. "It’s pronounced Shanti," she notes, reflecting thephilosophy she and her husband had shared since meeting in college in the early ’80s.Jupiter called his son ‘Chinglailakba’ or dragon tamer. Not someone who fightsdragons, she explains, but someone who tames them.
"The paperwork has slowed down," she laments. It has been a year of dealingwith bureaucracy and legal hassles, not to mention grief. It took months just to reclaimher car, the one he’d driven to work. Nancy has stopped working at the New York Stateoffice of mental health. There’s so much to attend to at their home in Beacon, anhour north of New York City. Mundane tasks, like mowing the lawn and cleaning the gutters,chores that Jupiter always took care of. Nancy also helps coach Santi’s soccer team,another of Jupiter’s role. "He played goalie a couple times," she says,looking at her son. "He stopped some goals."
Nancy is still searching for a necklace her husband had worn since he was a baby. Henever took it off, tying it into a knot even when he went swimming. The necklace, shefeels, must have been near where his body was discovered. Every month she makes calls tosee whether it has been found in the rubble. Fortunately, she has his weddingring—found on his body—and which now dangles from the necklace she’swearing.
She and Santi are all set to travel to Jupiter’s home in Manipur, where they wouldperform some rituals, travel to Darjeeling, where he’d gone to school, and scatterhis ashes from his old hiking trail along Tiger Hill.
"But the time has come to move on," she says. "Everybody’s beenthere for me, but after a few months you’re left to your own devices. I’m tiredof the sad faces."
