By: Megan Roche

Matthew John Bocchi recalls his dad John Paul Bocchi.

“My dad came from a poor Italian immigrant family. My grandfather worked very hard to give them a life that he didn’t have. My dad had a very similar idea of giving me and my brothers a life that he never had. He made it very clear from a young age that we weren’t going to grow up spoiled kids. My dad worked hard. He had so many things going on outside of work. He was very active in our town, he was very active in our church, so there was a lot going on where he was a vital role and voice in our community,” Bocchi said.  

From sports car rides and time spent with dad as the coach of his soccer and baseball teams, Bocchi grew up happy. John worked in New York City at the World Trade Center. He was often out late at night entertaining clients or attending meetings. But he would always make sure to get home to kiss his four son’s goodnight. 

In the short few years that Matthew knew his dad, he never thought he’d live a day like September 11, 2001. 

“I comprehended the day itself, but I didn’t understand the severity of it. I was pulled out of my classroom and my first instinct was that I was in trouble, but I didn’t know what I did. Once I got into the hallway, I saw my brother who was seven years old. They had then told us that a small plane had hit our dad’s building but they were evacuating the buildings and that our dad was safe,” Bocchi said. 

After spending the day at school, Bocchi arrived home and immediately realized that something had happened to his dad. 

“I saw so many cars parked in the driveway. I walked into the house with my brother and I witnessed numerous family members crying and huddled in corners. But I kept walking and I walked into the tv room and I saw the footage for the first time and that’s where it really hit me. I saw my dad’s building on fire, I saw the second plane hit the second tower, and I watched them come down. A family friend had changed the channel on the tv and on the new channel, they showed an image of someone falling to their death,” Bocchi said. 

Matthew’s dad worked on the 104th floor of tower one and never returned home. In the days following the attacks, Matthew became obsessed with thinking that his father may have been one of the jumpers. He searched thousands of hours of footage, hoping that one of the grainy figures jumping out of the towers would be his father.

“It really involved me looking at the same videos over and over, hoping that I would find something different in those videos. I’d pause these videos and try to enhance the screen shot. It was my thought that I could find someone who resembled my father,” Bocchi said.

He reached out to so many photographers and videographers who had footage from 9/11, but Bocchi never heard back. 

“That research phase was my entire life. I’d get home from school, I’d look at the photos, I’d look at the videos, and I would think that I would find him. I really believed that I would find him,” Bocchi recalled.

Bocchi often found himself in conversations with his mother and family members about what happened to his father. Those conversations became too much and Bocchi found himself still obsessed with trying to find out what happened to his dad. During this same time, Bocchi was also being sexually abused by his uncle. It led Bocchi down a devastating path of drugs and alcohol abuse and multiple suicide attempts. 

“It was my sophomore year at Villanova that I was introduced to OxyContin. From there on out, I was addicted to opiates. I was in and out of treatment centers for two years. I graduated from Villanova in 2014 and I got arrested in November of that same year and charged with three felonies. I was facing up to five years in state prison,” Bocchi said. 

One incident changed it all.

“I got put on probation in 2015 and I was told that I needed to be sober for one year, something that I couldn’t even do for one day. My lawyer told me that I would get drug tested twice. The first drug test letter came in June. Leading up to that drug test, I couldn’t get sober. I called up a dealer and he told me about a detox mouthwash that would show the test as clean, even though I wasn’t,” Bocchi said.

In addition to the mouthwash, Bocchi purchased clean urine from a friend. 

“As I sat in that waiting room waiting for the drug test, high out of my mind, I kept thinking that it wasn’t a place I belonged. I thought that I was smarter and better than the addicts that were in there with me. I get called in and my probation officer gave me the test and I realized that I left that fake urine at home,” Bocchi said.

After failing the test, his probation officer gave him one more chance to get clean. If he wasn’t clean in a month, he would go off to jail immediately. 

“As I’m sitting at my mom’s house, trying to figure out what I am going to do. I rolled a joint, made a drink and sat in the backyard. I looked up at the sky and I saw this crystal clear blue sky that looked just like it did on 9/11. I started crying and I asked my dad for a sign,” Bocchi said. 

That sign did indeed come and Bocchi said that he was done with drugs forever. He checked himself into a detox facility and since July 2015, Bocchi has been sober. 

Since then, Bocchi has not stopped. After writing a bestselling book, Sway, about his experiences being a child of 9/11, he’s started a journey of public speaking. Bocchi speaks on topics of drugs and alcohol abuse, his experiences on September 12, 2001, and emotional trauma. 

“I’ve spoken to over 100,000 kids at this point and it’s absolutely unbelievable. I’ve dedicated my life to this venture. I get paid to help people and it’s incredible. My hope is that I can walk into a school and impact one kid, one faculty member, one person, to let them know that it’s okay not to be okay,” Bocchi said. 

While he’s never found out the truth of what happened to his father, Matthew knows that his father is ultimately proud of him.

“My dad didn’t get a chance, and that’s a big part of why I do what I do today. I finally stopped worrying about what happened to him inside that building and I focus on the life that he lived in such a short period of time. It took a lot to get to that point, but I got to it. My dad wanted to find his happiness in life. He was going to quit, he had a vacation day scheduled for September 12 and he didn’t get to see that vacation day. Going into finance to try and be like him, why would I want to do something that he was trying to escape? I know, more than anything, that I didn’t care what anyone thought and I followed my heart, I know that he would be proud,” Bocchi said. 

To learn more about Bocchi or to order his book, visit www.matthewjohnbocchi.com.