By Laura Italiano New York Post
Photo, NY Post
A simple metal bracelet, lost and then found on a Long Island beach, has united two families recovering from the deaths of their firefighter loved ones.
Ten years ago, the memorial bracelet, inscribed with the name of a fallen 9/11 firefighter, slipped off the wrist of the hero’s young son, and was lost in the sands of Robert Moses Beach.
Recently, the bracelet — inscribed “F.F. Michael J. Otten, F.D.N.Y. Ladder 35, 9/11/01 — reappeared on the sands, and was picked up by a woman whose firefighter brother, Michael O’Neill, had died unexpectedly in the spring.
“Ten years later, a wave washed up, and then the wave washed back, and there it was,” Otten’s widow Marion, of East Islip, told The Post on Friday.
The bracelet was found by Marlene Quinn, a fellow Long Islander who had grown up in East Islip, but never knew the Ottens.
Quinn — who strolled the beach for solace after her brother’s death, mailed the memento to the Ottens this week.
It sits now on the dresser of Christopher Otten, 21, once a boy on a beach, and now an aspiring firefighter.
“When you least expect it, things come back to you — like the good memories,” Otten’s widow said of the bracelet.
“Life goes on, and as much as we miss them, we know they’re here with us, and watching over us, and we’ll be OK,” she said, adding of her lost husband, “This is just his sign to say, ‘I’m still with you.’”
