“I’m getting out. I’m coming home.”
Those were the final words of William Lawrence Fallon Jr. before he was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center 25 years ago.
He worked as an IT manager for Cantor Fitzgerald and was just 38 years old when he was killed.
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His daughter Kayla Fallon Smith was 8 years old when she learned her father would not be coming home.
Before the attacks, Smith, now 33, said her father – who always commuted into work early – would call the house phone in the morning to wish her and her sister well before they would head to school.
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He went in early so he could leave earlier in the afternoons to take her to dancing school after her school day.
“That was the kind of man he was. I remember he would get up and work out in the morning before even going to work, so you’d hear the weights dropping in the house. I do remember that as a kid,” Smith said.
Those quick and light-hearted morning phone calls to his daughters set the tone for the day.
“He would tell us what the skyline looked like. Sometimes it would be cloudy below him and he couldn’t even see the street, but it’d be sunny up there,” she said.
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Smith remembers hearing her father’s voice for the last time on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.
“I spoke to him on the house phone that day, as I always did,” she said, to which he said on the phone, “Have a good morning,” she said.
“I’m sure I said something like, ‘I love you, have a great day’,” Smith said.
Her dad called again that fateful morning – sometime after the first tower was hit.
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This time, her mother answered the phone.
“He said something to the degree of, ‘I’m getting out, I’m coming home,’ and that was it,” she said.
Smith’s mother replied and said, “What are you talking about?” He responded and said, “Turn on the news.”
After that he hung up.
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His family never heard from him again.
“Those words haunt me a little bit,” Smith said. “Every year, grief is different. It doesn’t go away. It’s a myth when people say that time heals all wounds; it doesn’t.”
In the last 25 years of growing up without her father, Smith has turned her pain and grief into purpose. She’s devoted her life to helping others living with grief and mental struggles.
Smith is a licensed mental health counselor who founded Trails of Purpose – a nonprofit organization that provides free mental health counseling and equine-assisted therapy to military members, veterans, first responders and their families.
“As I was getting my graduate degree, I started to experience equine-assisted therapy, and I really—it just clicked for me,” she said.
She went on to say, “I never experienced that as a kid, and I had a lot of trauma therapy growing up. The resources were abundant for 9/11 victims, and I never experienced equine therapy.”
She started her organization in 2019.
“I needed a place to just be when my brain always felt on fire. I think I’ve created that, and it’s seeming to resonate with other people.”
Trails of Purpose has offered 30,000 hours of free mental health counseling and equine-assisted therapy to military members and first responders.
“The horses, and the connection that they have when when words don’t seem to to come, the horses can just be with you,” she said.
“I created the thing that I think I needed: community and understanding, and a place that’s safe, and quiet, and a respite,” she said.
As she helps others heal, Smith said she’ll never stop sharing her father’s story.
“If we can remember the feeling that we had on September 12th, I think that would be my biggest point of education for the next generation.”