Twenty-five years after 9/11, Kimmy Chedel is still carrying the memory of her husband, Frank Doyle, who was killed in the World Trade Center. Their children were just two and one at the time.

Now, she’s reflecting on the last words they shared and the legacy he has left behind.

Chedel says she first met Doyle in New York. “It was love at first sight. His name tag was stuck to my shoe, and I was just obsessed,” she recounted.

“I couldn’t believe I had met this man. He was funny, kind, caring. He was gorgeous.”

The two would later go on to get married and welcome two children, Zoe and Garrett, while living in Englewood, New Jersey. But on Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001, Chedel says their lives suddenly changed forever.

“I know exactly where I was 25 years ago and how perfect our life was,” she said.

“It wasn’t long after I left the house that I heard on 1010 News that a commercial aircraft had hit the World Trade Center. So I very quickly turned my car around, went back to the house. I’ll never forget. I couldn’t get my key into the front door of the house. My hand was just shaking, shaking.

“I went immediately to the phone, and I called Frank right away, 212-323-484-50. And someone answered the phone, and they’re like, ‘Frankie,’ and I said ‘it’s Kimmy.’ So all of a sudden I had this massive sense of relief because, you know, they’re OK.

“He said, if you think we got rocked in ’93, this was 10 times worse. He said, Kimmy, I was thrown to the floor.”

In 1993, Chedel and Doyle both lived through the World Trade Center bombing, an experience Chedel believes shaped how her husband responded on 9/11. After their phone call, she briefly thought he was safe. But at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the South Tower, where Doyle worked. 

“He called me after the second plane had hit his tower. And on that call he was speaking very deliberately, and he said, I need you to listen carefully. I’ve gone up to the rooftop; the rooftop doors are locked. He said, ‘We’re trapped on the 87th floor. It’s getting difficult to breathe.’ I could hear people coughing. I could hear a girl crying. You could hear glass shattering. And he said, ‘I know you know this, but you need to promise to tell Zoe and Garrett every day for the rest of their lives how much their papa loves them.’”

Doyle then told her he needed her to hang up and call 911 to tell them there were people trapped on the 87th floor.

“I didn’t realize how brave he was on that call, but he was saying goodbye,” said Chedel.

Doyle’s final call came at 9:22 a.m., less than 40 minutes before the South Tower collapsed.

“At 9:59, I’m watching the TV live, and I’m watching his tower collapse. So he had very little time. Their building was hit at 9:03, and they died at 9:59. “

Frank Doyle was 39. His remains were identified through dental records several weeks later. But for Chedel, the process of recovering pieces of her husband continued for years.

“I got seven calls over the next three-and-a-half years. And during those calls they would say, ‘We have his right tibia. We have his left femur. We have his left foot. We have his right foot.’ That was tough,” said Chedel, holding back tears.

At the time, Chedel was raising two young children while trying to navigate a loss that changed every part of their lives.

“I was struggling, I was 37 years old with two babies, but I made sure that they never saw me cry. You know, we slept together in a big king-size bed, and I would cry after they went to sleep at night,” she explained.

Chedel says she kept living for her children. “It was just really important for me to know that they would look back on their childhood and realize that we just kept living, because that’s what Frank would want us to do,” she said.

In the years that followed, Chedel made sure her husband’s memory remained a part of his children’s lives, while turning his love of sports into a lasting legacy.

In 2017, she created Team Frank Africa in Montreal. The organization has helped support 19 schools so far across South Africa in his honour, with Chedel saying many more are on the horizon.

“He was the greatest dad and I just hope that he can see his kids and that he’s really proud of what we’ve created in terms of his legacy,” said Chedel.