9/11: 20 Years Later
Victim’s Wife Recalls Tragedy and Adversity
Elba Cedeno lost her wife on 9/11 — and then she faced discrimination in the aftermath
BY MATT TRACY
Elba Cedeno and Cathy
Smith would often compare
themselves to Pepé
Le Pew and Penelope
from the Looney Tunes cartoon:
Smith pursued Cedeno at a Rockland
County bar they both frequented,
but Cedeno played hardto
get — at least until they couldn’t
help but fall in love.
They went on cruises together.
They dreamed of traveling the
world. They had an unoffi cial marriage
ceremony at a time when
marriage equality was not yet a
reality.
Their love story, however, took a
tragic turn on September 11, 2001,
when Smith was working on the
97th fl oor in one of the twin towers
as a vice president at Marsh
& McLennan. Cedeno feared the
worst when she learned about the
attacks that morning.
“In the moment, when I got the
news, I was at my job — I thought
it was a joke,” Cedeno recalled during
an emotional phone interview.
“When I got home, I walked in the
house and the TV was on and I
kept looking at it in disbelief.”
Smith died in the attacks at the
age of 44, leaving Cedeno with
a broken heart and a feeling of
shock that rattled her to her core.
Cedeno’s life — and the couple’s
relationship — disappeared in the
blink of an eye.
“I could not function,” Cedeno
said. “Thank god I had beautiful
friends and family and had the
support, because I could barely
eat, barely talk, and barely walk.
It was awful.”
Cedeno met up with Smith’s
family following the attacks and
they made their way down to a destroyed
lower Manhattan, which
was blanketed with memorials and
engulfed with silence. They could
“hear a pin drop,” Cedeno remembered,
as the hustling, bustling
Elba Cedeno (left) with her late wife Cathy and Cathy’s mother.
city went quiet.
To this day, Cedeno still speaks
with raw emotion when she invokes
her late wife. She recalls Smith
as an avid football fan who loved
watching Dan Marino and the Miami
Dolphins, and she especially
enjoyed spending time together
with loved ones. Cedeno continues
to stay in touch with Smith’s family
today.
“Cathy meant the world to me,”
said Cedeno, who owned a house
with Smith in West Haverstraw,
New York. “She was smart, beautiful,
and made me so happy. I
was proud to be her wife. We had
planned to spend a long life together.
We were going to spend the
weekend in New York and she was
going to show me her offi ce. She
never got to do that.”
Instead, Cedeno found herself
saddled with the hardship of losing
her life partner at a time when
LGBTQ couples did not have the
same marriage rights as straight
couples. Cedeno encountered roadblocks
when she sought assistance
through the 9/11 Victim Compensation
Fund, which set out to provide
fi nancial help for victims and
their families.
Cedeno said she was initially
denied benefi ts and further faced
anti-LGBTQ discrimination from
the Salvation Army, which was one
of the agencies providing relief in
the wake of the attacks.
Thankfully, though, Cedeno had
the unwavering support of Smith’s
family members, who stood alongside
her as she sought benefi ts and
conveyed to offi cials that Smith
and Cedeno were just like any
other married couple. Cedeno said
she received legal assistance at
the time from Lambda Legal, an
LGBTQ litigation group, and she
wound up receiving the benefi ts in
the end.
“It was rough,” Cedeno said.
“The pain of going through that
was just unbearable. I was happy
that we had Lambda step in and I
was happy that everybody was able
to recognize us and get it together.
The family was there to vouch for
us as if we were married. It was
more than enough proof.”
ELBA CEDENO
Smith was one of nearly 3,000
people who were killed during the
attacks on September 11, 2001,
and many of those who did survive
wound up experiencing severe
health consequences that have
lingered to this day. Countless others
who initially survived the attacks
later died from 9/11-related
cancer, respiratory illnesses, and
other health issues stemming from
the effects of the dust that spread
through the air around Ground
Zero.
Many of the surviving victims
and families of victims are commemorating
the 20th anniversary
of the 9/11 attacks. Cedeno, who
now lives in Florida, has since returned
to Ground Zero to pay tribute
to Smith — including at the
10-year anniversary in 2011 — but
the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted
her wishes to return to New
York City this year.
“I would have loved to be there,”
she said. “All I can say is ‘I miss
you, Cathy. I wish we could have
spent our lives together. I wish that
never happened.’”
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