Note: This is a re-posting of what I wrote in 2009 about my memories of my experience on September 11, 2001. While we move forward I continue to hope we can remember and retain the shift.
I woke up early to drive from Brooklyn where I was staying with
friends to my office just north of Manhattan. I went in earlier than
usual that morning because I knew I would be leaving early to finally
(after six long weeks of limbo, couch surfing, house sitting and hotel
hopping) close on the purchase of the first home I would own. Given the
hard-won momentous occasion that would be happening that day, it was
not surprising that the stunningly perfect morning that unfolded around
me as I drove along the outer edges of the island of Manhattan would
sear into my memory.
I took the not-too-hot/not-too-cool/just-right air in which a
spectacularly bright sun hung in a seemingly endless and cloudless
vividly blue sky plus my tingly excitement as a sign that September 11,
2001 would be a day I would never forget.
I hadn't lived in and around New York City long enough for the twin
towers of the World Trade Center to become touchstones, totems and
landmarks for me the way they were for so many who lived and worked in
Manhattan. Nevertheless, when one of my co-workers came by my desk to
tell me that people were gathering in a conference room to watch the
news because a plane had crashed into one of the towers, I knew it was
a big deal and so I joined them in viewing. It feels like I still have
muscle memory of the collective shock, gasp and shudder felt when all
of us in the room witnessed the second plane hit the other tower, live
as it happened.
As soon as I saw the fireball, the gash in the building and the
plane disappear, I knew what had happened, what was happening. I
couldn't watch much more. I threw myself into spreadsheets and working
with the finance department on a particularly tricky bit of analysis.
As speculations circulated they were passed on from cubicle to cubicle.
I tried to call family members who lived in Queens but phone lines were
understandably jammed. Instead I called my mother in California both to
reassure her that I was safe and to ask her to call and check in with
my New York family for me.
There were several women who worked around me who had met their
husbands in business school. They had pursued brand management after
graduating and their husbands worked in banking and finance. Our
company, so close to Manhattan, allowed such couples to navigate a
pursuit of those interests and live in a city that was both exciting
and accommodating so there were quite a few. These women were
especially terrified in the chaotic aftermath and frantic to connect
with their husbands to make sure they were still alive. The woman in
the cubicle next to mine broke down in tears after she spoke with her
husband. Though he was safe, the comprehension of what so many others
were experiencing finally overwhelmed her. Another woman I worked with
was married to a popular morning news anchor in Manhattan. Like several
of our executives, she was in Chicago at a company sales conference at
the time (they eventually had to take a bus home because flights were
grounded). She told us she knew her husband was OK when she heard him
interview Mayor Giuliani on CNN.
I went to my closing and it was delayed as we waited for a
substitute title agent to arrive from New Jersey. The agent who was to
attend was in Manhattan and by then the bridges in and out of the
island were reportedly shut down. The full weight of the tragedy had
not yet sunk in and that was the only reason why I think we were able
to complete the closing and I left the real estate office with a set of
new keys. Had it been scheduled for September 12 I doubt it would have
happened.
My furniture was all in storage. Everything else was in a suitcase
in Brooklyn. Fortunately I had a sleeping bag and a small radio a
co-worker had loaned me. That night I settled into a dark empty
apartment and listened to the one news station I could receive clearly
and listened to the same news report over and over, long into the
night. My cable and television wouldn't be set up for several days so
other than the the bit I had watched at the office that morning, I
never saw the news reports. It is a hole in my memory that I've tried
to fill in by watching the replays on anniversaries but it is never the
same. Those images never stick in my brain or in my heart.
Subsequent events have filled in some of the space between the
memory contours I just described. I drove to work a couple of days
later and a security guard handed me a flag pin. I was grateful to have
been at the right gate at the right time and to have received that pin.
I wore it proudly, fiercely for months to come even though flag waving
patriotism has never been my style.
A few days later after the bridges were re-opened, I drove to
Brooklyn to retrieve my belongings from the home of my friends. That
included my two dogs, Zoe and Gracie. My friends filled me in on their
experience of that day.
Not too long prior, he had worked in one of the towers on banking
software. He had brought a more laid back tech sensibility to the
hard-charging banking world and taught some of his colleagues that 10
AM was an acceptable start time and that 7 or 8 AM did not have to be
the norm. Those colleagues who followed my friend's lead lived. Some
others who still valued an early start and who chose not to defy
authority died after they were told to return to their office near the
top of the tower after what they heard was a bomb attack on the tower
next to theirs and did so rather than follow their rebellious
co-workers down the stairs.
She told me that having to walk my dogs forced them up off the couch
and broke the spell of watching the aftermath of the tragedy just
across the river. Nevertheless they couldn't escape witnessing. As they
walked my dogs, she told me, Gracie the more exuberant Chihuahua of my
bunch, as always, eagerly pulled to greet, wag her tail for and hope to
lick passers-by. Gracie would have to be denied this day because the
crowd of people streaming past had just walked across a bridge from
lower Manhattan to Brooklyn and many were covered in ash.
The company I worked for joined other large corporations and
contributed, if I remember correctly, $10,000,000 to the families of
the victims and recovery efforts. It was still nebulous who and where
the money was going to and what it was supporting but we all wanted to
do something, anything and there was an outpouring of giving. As a
result of this donation, as employees we were granted the opportunity
to volunteer at Ground Zero. There were so many more people that wanted
to volunteer than could be accommodated or used that there were filters
such as this created to determine who got to serve. I met two of my
co-workers early one October morning and rode the subway to the Red
Cross offices in Brooklyn. Lower Manhattan was still closed off so we
had to assemble and take a bus specially permitted to bring us to the
site of the gash in the earth.
I had seen the crater in the ground, flames still rising, a couple
of weeks earlier when I had flown back to New York from Washington D.C.
and the flight path took us low and close enough to clearly see Ground
Zero as we headed to La Guardia airport. Sill, I was not prepared for
the experience of arriving on the ground. Having to de-contaminate my
shoes before entering the hotel at the edge of Ground Zero that served
as one of the homes to volunteers. The overwhelming smell of
still-burning jet fuel. The grime that hung in the air in such sharp
contrast to the clarity before.
Inside the hotel I was assigned to work in the hall where volunteers
working in the pit came to eat their meals. I worked alongside a
bright, chatty young woman who had moved to New York City to become an
actress. She had time and was a regular volunteer and this was her
regular assignment. That familiarity allowed her to chat, sometimes
flirt, and engage with the mostly male volunteers who wearily sat down
to eat. The tables were filled with books created by school children
filled with drawings and sweet words of support. Some of the police
officers, iron workers and firefighters would leaf through them. Others
would enjoy listening to the young woman read them aloud. Others had
nerves that were still raw and needed shielding. The groups from
churches seemed to be especially interested and delighted.
I fell into silence. I felt so unworthy to be in the presence of
these people. As much as possible I busied myself with bringing
utensils, refills of beverages and replenishing the stocks of donated
snacks. I admired the young woman's ability to read the volunteers and
know which ones wanted to connect and which ones wanted to be left
alone. I erred on the side of not wanting to risk intruding even though
it felt somewhat selfish not to fellowship and I regret not taking the
opportunity to ask if they wanted to talk and to listen. The experience
was the most humbling of my life and gave me a glimpse at the power of
community and humanity and how we can nevertheless feel small and
helpless.
So many other small things populate and create my memory. The
classmate who as an Army Reservist was pulled from his job at Goldman
Sachs to patrol the bridges. The outpouring of support for a co-worker
whose brother died in one of the towers and wondering if it could ever
be enough and knowing that we could never fully understand her grief
and pain. The amazing people I met in Hawaii a few months later who
were unbelievably kind to my friend and me when they learned that we
were visiting from New York and who expressed genuine concern for and
interest in how we and the city were doing. The co-workers who, even
though the bridges and roads were supposedly closed, would not be kept
from their partners and families in Manhattan and refused to stay in
hotels or with co-workers and drove back home and made it in without
being stopped - the sheer force of their will and determination
seemingly clearing a path. The posters hanging in Grand Central Station
and around the city of missing people and the desperate hope that
somehow they had survived and could still be found. How I stopped
watching Survivor because I thought it felt too mean. How I
vowed that I would always refer to that day as "September 11th" rather
than "9/11" because 9/11 felt too diminutive and too disrespectful.
That some amazing art was created in the wake of tragedy (Bruce
Springsteen's The Rising is a powerful personal favorite)
The untimely death of any human being is tragic. Murder, terror and
violence are always abhorrent. The deaths of September 11, 2001 are to
me, no more and no less worthy of our grief, attention and memory than
any others. However, what I will always carry with me, in addition to
the particulars of my experience, is the sense of the collective nature
of the events. How we all have a story, a memory and an inability to
ever forget that day even if the specifics might fuzz and soften over
time. I long for that feeling of love and shared humanity that so
permeated life immediately afterwards and that I grieve the loss of it
over time. I hope and I pray that some of that shift will forever be
stored inside us and carry on as we propel forward and time carries us
further away.
Cross posted at BlogHer
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