The Healing Journey

May 22, 2026

The following is excerpted from a story that appeared in Fairfield County Catholic.

Through Grief and Forgiveness, A Chance to Honor and Remember

By Emily Clark

For Patrick McGarry, the 12 greatest words in the English language are ones that all Catholics know by heart: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It’s a forgiveness he sought from a penetrating hate, stemming from a deliberate act of violence inflicted on thousands of innocent people. One of the many was his little sister Katie McGarry Noack, who perished when the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001.

Decades later, McGarry, a 1986 graduate of Fairfield University, channeled his love, forgiveness and the grief he still feels into a worthwhile act of remembrance. Beginning March 8, he embarked on a 3,000-mile cross-country bike ride from San Diego to St. Augustine, Fla., with a goal of raising $100,000 for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, an organization that supports first responders, veterans and their families. The work they do, he said, is “sacred.” He completed his journey in 44 days.

“Katie was so giving, so loyal. I will never forget her, but I also wanted to do something in her name,” said McGarry, a Brooklyn native who now lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. “This ride is a thank-you letter to the people who tried to save her. I think there was more good and love that day than acts of evil, but it took me many years to get through the hate.”

Thirty years old in 2001, Katie, the youngest of the five McGarry children, had just gotten married and started a new job for a financial services company. She was, her brother said, at the pinnacle of her life. Then tragedy stuck the day Katie attended a meeting at Windows on the World, arriving just 10 minutes before the first plane hit. McGarry, on vacation with friends in Montana at the time, watched it all unfold from afar.

“I wanted to put my hand through the TV to save her, trying to will a different outcome. It was shock, horror, sadness all at once. It was hard,” he recalls, still choking up at the memory. When he returned to New York three days later, McGarry and Katie’s husband Brad, who made it safely out of the Towers that Tuesday, spent days looking for her in the city, until they called off what became a futile search.

Though he has had a full life with his wife Mariana and two sons, a successful career in Florida and endless opportunities for golf, the pain of losing Katie and facing – twice – the violence of terrorism and the hate that followed remained buried until some challenges at work prompted him to go to church at lunch time each day – with nothing but his faith and a Jimmy John’s sub.

“I went into this beautiful basilica downtown that had three things I treasure in life – quiet, incense and Gregorian chants,” he said. After sitting and praying for several days, he went to Confession, something he hadn’t done in quite a while. When the priest asked for what he wanted forgiveness, McGarry realized it all circled back to the tragedy of 9/11. “‘For the hate,’ I said. ‘The hate I feel for the people who did this.’ Then I left, and I felt like I weighed 50 pounds lighter.”

McGarry calls that moment in the confessional a beginning – one of healing, of realization, of opening up about his grief. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the following year, he turned to the outdoors for respite – and found through long bike rides on the Florida coast. It’s a solitary act, he said, with lots of time for thinking and reflection. A decade of the Rosary here, a few Hail Marys there, and he started to open up about his grief. “It’s not something you get through. It’s something you live through, and not all of it has to be bad,” McGarry said “Recovering from grief is part of who I am. So, I thought this bike ride would be good.”

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