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Remembering Erik Isbrandtsen of Marblehead

By JILL HARMACINSKI

Staff writer

MARBLEHEAD -- Watching a child grow is a parent's constant pastime, Dirk Isbrandtsen explains. It's not something that ends when your son turns 18 or 21 or 25.

"You watch your children grow up, they grow up and they always keep growing," he says. "You keep looking forward to see what's next."

But on Sept. 11, 2001, that all changed for this Marblehead family.

That day Dirk Isbrandtsen's son, Erik, 30, was working on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center when a hijacked plane crashed into it.

A month later, Erik's remains were identified through DNA testing. A memorial service was held in Erik's hometown of Marblehead. Numerous friends and relatives turned up to pay their respects.

"He was absolutely loved by so many people. It was amazing for a young man," his father recalls.

Erik Isbrandtsen was a standout soccer player who graduated from Babson College and then spent six years working at prestigious firms along the Atlantic coast.

On Sept. 11 he was working at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York City, where he had spent some college days as an intern. He had landed a job as a securities trader, assigned to the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.

But long before Erik saw Manhattan, Marblehead was his home. He moved to Everett Paine Boulevard in Marblehead with his father and stepmother, Diana Isbrandtsen, in 1979.

He attended Marblehead schools, "from the Glover School all the way to the high school," his father says, graduating in 1990.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Erik had already been at work for a couple of hours when a hijacked airplane slammed into the World Trade Center towers. It took a month for his parents to get the official confirmation from police that Erik had been killed.

It's a loss that is not only tragic, Diana Isbrandtsen says, but unnatural for a parent. As a mother, you expect you will die before your child -- not the other way around.

"It's just not the natural progression of life for something like this to happen," she says.

"We will never see him get married. We will never see him have kids."

Since Sept. 11, friends and family have helped the Isbrandtsens piece together two large murals of the many phases of Erik's short life.

"It's not emotional for me to look at the photos of him," says Dirk, pointing out a snapshot of Erik on the way to his senior prom.

"It's when you're doing something mundane and you realize he's gone. That's the really sad part."

To keep Erik's memory alive, his parents have established scholarship funds that will help Marblehead and Babson College students for many years to come.

Just a month before his death, Dirk and Diana saw their son at a family wedding in Colorado. The morning of the wedding, while everyone was primping for the formal event, Dirk and Erik got away for a while. They laced up their running shoes and hit the road for a long jog.

Dirk is silent as he recalls that run.

His son wanted what many others do: to find professional success, to fall in love and someday to have children.

"He was a young, energetic man who was also very sensitive," his father says.

"And I think that's why so many people loved him."