‘It’s always been yesterday and forever for me’

TWENTY years may have passed since 9/11, but Dorry Tompsett, now 68, said the day she lost her husband still “feels like yesterday”.

Stephen Tompsett, 39, from Sydney, was attending a technology conference at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center’s North Tower when the first hijacked plane – American Airlines Flight 11 – tore into the 92nd and 98th floors, destroying all three stairwells. No one above the impact zone survived.

“We had a beautiful life together,” Dorry said of her “soulmate” husband.

“It was too short but in the 12 years of my marriage with Stephen – and 13 years of knowing him – I had more than most people have in a lifetime.

“It feels like yesterday. It’s always been yesterday and forever for me.”

The couple met in the late 1980s when Stephen worked for an Australian software company that had a contract with the financial information company where Dorry worked in the US.

“When we got married I had the word ‘forever’ engraved on his wedding ring, and I meant that,” she said.

Dorry and the couple’s only child, Emily, 30, are based in New York.

Emily, who was just 10 years old when her dad was killed, is now a schoolteacher due to marry her fiance next year.

“He’s missed so much of our only child,” Dorry said.

“He was a wonderful husband and father … nobody could ever replace Stephen.”

Dorry, who will walk her daughter down the aisle at her wedding, said the pair will mark the anniversary together, along with their dogs.