She wanted the public to hear her mom's final 9/11 transmission

No one wants to remember their loved one in the manner that voice transmission describes for us. As hard as that is for us and how traumatic that is to hear, I think it's important that people do because you don't understand it until you're really faced with, you know, how terrible it was that day. My name is Patricia Smith. I was two years old on September 11th. So I was at home in Queens, New York with my dad. My mom is police officer Moira Ann Smith. She worked at 13th Precinct. So my mom was one of the first NYPD officers to actually respond. So she saw the planes hit the building and she took a van down to the World Trade Center. There's a lot of stories around her standing in one of the stairwells with a flashlight in front of a window just saying, don't look down, just keep walking. Don't look, just keep walking. Because you could see the people jumping from the windows. A lot of people that came forward and told us that the only reason that they got out was because they could focus and they weren't stopping and they weren't freaking out that, you know, my mom was a calm voice in the chaos for them. So she was there in that second tower when it collapsed. She was the only female police officer, NYPD officer that died in 9-11 that day. And then in March of 2002, they were actually able to find her body. And so we were able to have a real funeral for her, which was great. And the whole community showed up. Hundreds of her colleagues turned out to mourn her loss and honor her bravery. People talk all the time about everyone that we lost on September 11th, but people don't talk about everyone that kind of had to pick up the pieces. And my dad is that person. My dad was also an NYPD officer. He not only lost his wife, but he lost a lot of friends, a lot of people he worked with as well. The beginning was really hard and that did not change how he showed up for me. And it's really hard to kind of be thrown into a single dad role to a small little girl amidst all this tragedy and chaos. I'm proud to be your daughter. You will always be my hero and the pride of New York City. It's been kind of a divide between deep loss and deep pride. I don't remember my mom. I have no independent memories of my mom. A lot of people, they're grieving Moira Smith. They're grieving the person they knew. And I never got to know that person. I can hear people tell me every day that my mom was a great person and she was lovely and fun, but it's hard because I never got to experience it. They came to the 9-11 Museum to pay their respects. I kind of feel like I'm a little bit closer to the people that passed, my mom especially. Just kind of doing my own research around 9-11 when I was super young in middle school, around the anniversary and things like that. I happened to stumble upon it one day. I had to listen to the voice recording of my mom's last transmission. And basically her last words and her calling out for help over the police radio. Obviously that's my mom and that's really hard to hear and it's really hard for my family to hear. I brought it to my dad and I was like, I had no idea that this was a thing. Did you know it was a thing? And he was like, I knew it was a thing, but I didn't want you to hear it. No one wants to remember their loved one in the manner that that voice transmission describes her as. As hard as that is for us and how traumatic that is to hear, I think it's important that people do. Because you don't understand it until you're really faced with how terrible it was that day. We all said 25 years ago we would never forget, but it's been difficult to see that it seems to have started to slip away a little bit. I don't always want my mom's story to be connected to just the way she died. I want people to know her for who she was before September 11. Anytime I help someone, anytime I'm in a situation where I feel like I can go one or two ways here. I can go out of my way to help someone or I can just keep walking past. My mom's in the front of my mind and you give a helping hand and you keep going.