. . . Steve and I had just returned from a trip to Jersey City to visit friends. I spent a large portion of Sunday morning, before everyone else woke up, marveling at the New York skyline. Their apartment was just across the river from lower Manhattan, and I just never got tired of looking at the two buildings towering and dwarfing everything else in sight. I remember turning around in my seat as we started the drive home, for one last lingering look at the Towers in the skyline.
Two days later, they were gone, and the skyline was changed forever.
What can I say that hasn't been said a thousand times before? We were in shock, we grieved, we screamed, we cried. It seems it is easiest to filter the memories through the facts: where were you when it happened? We seem to play this game with every disaster that affects us as a community of Americans. Where were you when Kennedy was shot? When the Challenger blew up? When the bombing happened in Oklahoma City? When the Towers fell?
I was at work. The day was every bit as clear, the sky as blue and beautiful in central PA as it was in NYC. I think we were clearing away breakfast at the day care in which I worked when a parent, dropping off her daughter, got a call from her husband. "Oh, my God," she said into the phone, then turned to us. "A plane just hit the World Trade Center."
It was a shock, a tragedy, but at that point, it was still just a terrible accident. And we went on with the normal tasks of every day--until other reports started to filter in. Another plane. Another call from a parent, to say that a plane hit the Pentagon where her father worked, and she would be at home watching the news coverage if we needed to reach her. Then, the assistant director came to the door to tell us the Twin Towers had fallen.
I responded stupidly. "But I was just there." I couldn't fathom the reality of that skyline, forever changed. Then the fear set in. My friend, the one we'd visited just two days before, worked in lower Manhattan just a few blocks from the WTC. Where was he? His wife was temping downtown--was she ok?
Somewhere, I still have the post-it note from the facility's secretary. "Your husband called. Everyone is ok." That was all I knew for a long time, but it was enough.
What strikes me most looking back is the feeling of absolute helplessness. We didn't know what was going on, couldn't really talk about it because we wanted to stay calm for the sake of the young children in our care, couldn't see the images that the rest of the world was watching. We had to comfort parents who came in to pick up their children, understanding their need to hold them, but warning against saying too much in front of them. We tried hard to retain some sense of normalcy that day, some sense of routine. I don't know if any of the kids in our care have memories of that day, but if we did our jobs well, they don't.
In those first few hours, no one seemed to know for sure what was happening. I remember a coworker telling me a plane was flying up the Potomac (up? I don't know where we imagined it was heading). It wasn't until much later that we heard about the plane near Shanksville,only 100 miles or so from State College, and the extraordinary courage of the people aboard. I read recently that had the plane been in the air just two more seconds, it would have come down on the local elementary school. I was not a parent at the time, but looking back now, as a mother of two, I can't imagine the gut-clenching fear, the absolute terror that those parents must have experienced until they knew their children were safe.
I left work early that day, headed to physical therapy for a back injury. I saw the first images in the doctor's office, and can't for the life of me remember what they were. I remember having a conversation with my therapist about the horror of the day, but can't remember what we said. I listened to NPR on the way home, and broke down for the first time as they talked about the crushed firetrucks under the rubble. My dad and my sister were both volunteer firefighters, so for me, the images of the first responders and their shattered equipment provoked a visceral response. My dad told me later that what really got to him was, after the Towers came down, hearing the motion detectors on the firemen's gear going off, indicating someone down, someone not moving. I hurt still to think about it.
I watched TV all night, until my husband--who had watched events unfold at his office--begged me to change the channel. He didn't understand that I needed to see it, trying to believe and make sense of it all. As if any of us could make sense of such a horrific act.
Later, we learned that my friend had gotten off the subway at the WTC stop just moments before the first plane hit. He thinks it happened when he was in the elevator in his building, because when they reached his office, all he could see were the papers flying everywhere. His building faced away from the Towers. They evacuated into the street, were standing a few blocks away watching as the first Tower fell. He was one of the heroes of the day, grabbing a young woman immobilized by shock and helping her get to the ferry. They watched from the ferry, from the middle of the Hudson, as the second Tower came down. He and his wife sheltered the young lady overnight, until she could get back into Manhattan.
We went to visit our Jersey friends again the following February. We went to Ground Zero, although we couldn't see anything past the fences. Flyers for missing people were still up, papers and dust still coated the ground in some areas. My aunt gave my holy hell when she found out I was there--I had just told my family I was expecting a baby in September, and she felt I had risked my health and the baby's just by being there. (Of course, this was well before anyone knew the full consequences that working "the pile" would have on first responders. In many fire and police stations across New York City, the attacks are still claiming lives.)
And now my baby, my oldest daughter, just turned 9. She has a vague awareness of the events 10 years ago, and tonight she told me she only had one question. "Why did those men do it?" How do you answer a question like that? I gave her the only answer I could--that it was hard to understand, that we would probably never understand, because an act of evil that unfathomable can not be understood. We can't understand because we can't know the hate, the fanaticism, that those men felt. We can't understand, because we understand other things, like the beauty of human differences, the freedom of choice, and the value of human life.
I don't know if those words were enough. She cried, and said she was afraid, and Steve and I both tried to explain how important it was to remember, to never forget, but also how important it was to go on with life. To live each day as a celebration of freedom, and joy, and love, and beauty. To live not in fear, but in sunshine and light.
Words aren't enough. But these words needed to come out tonight. I have been aching for some sort of catharsis all day. These words were not enough, but they helped. Thanks for listening . . .
