https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/twenty-years-gone-911-bobby-mcilvaine/619490/

There are people that need me. And that, in itself, is life. There are people I do not know yet that need me. That is life.

But eventually, he built a rich, fulfilling life. He married a woman who could not only subdue his pain but enter an entire grieving ecosystem. He had four kids—four! two boys, two girls—and oh, the relief of not having to focus on himself! I ask if he would have had that many kids if Bobby hadn’t— “No. I don’t think I would have.” Jeff lost his only sibling. He never wants any child of his to be in that position, should lightning ever restrike. “When you go through something like this,” he says, “you realize that family—it’s the only thing.”