THIS is Who We Were

 Saturday marked a very significant anniversary in my life and the life of this country. It marked 20 years since the terrorist attack destroying the Twin Towers in New York City, crashing into the Pentagon in Washington, DC and the thwarted United Flight 93 that was intended for another DC target. My Saturday went on as normal, but Saturday night I sat down to watch an excellent series that National Geographic produced called 9/11: One Day in America. This was a collection of stories told by the survivors of that day. These were the rescuers or the people who were the rescued or amazingly escaped death because of some random thing or place they were in the building right when things were happening. These weren't the stories of the people who were supposed to be there, and for some reason were not that day. These were the people who lived through it. To say the series was intense would be a vast understatement. I cried A LOT watching these people tell their stories. There was also quite a bit of footage I had never seen before. It begins as a normal day. If you recall, it was gorgeous weather that day, not a cloud in the sky. A fire company is called to investigate a gas leak. Someone is documenting the fireman checking the manhole covers in the street. It is business as usual, and then you hear this roar of a jet engine like a fighter pilot is coming through. North Tower of the World Trade Center is in the distance from where they are checking the gas leak, and you see the jet fly right into the building like a rocket. Even after all these years, it absolutely took my breath away when I saw it on the TV screen. I think the fact that it was coming from the perspective of the normal everyday job of a firefighter on the street, expecting nothing, I felt the shock and disbelief with them. It was like watching the day unfold in real time. Many of the stories, even though these people survived, were sad as they talked of their friends, co-workers, strangers even. A battalion chief whose brother was also on the fire department and was dispatched to the South Tower when it was hit. His words were that he watched his brother walk away, and that was the last time he saw him. Firefighters who spoke about how as they began the climb up the 100's of flights to get people out shook each other's hands and shared how they were honored to work with each other because they knew that they may be walking to their death. The mother of one of the men on United Flight 93 who called to talk to his family, knowing that he would not survive this flight and choosing to ruin the terrorist's plans. Story after story of what it was like to go through that day. As I watched Episode after Episode, there are 6, I only made it through 5 until I had to take an emotional break, I kept thinking, - How did these people make it through? How did they handle seeing what they're seeing? I must have said, "I can't imagine!" 50 times. One particularly haunting part was footage of the firefighters at a command post on the bottom floor of the North Tower (the first one hit) they are talking with each other to strategize how to get up to the people who need to be rescued, and you hear a large crash coming from outside. Something has fallen to the ground, and then about 30 seconds later you hear the same sound, and you realize that the sound you hear are bodies hitting the ground as they are jumping from the floors high above realizing their choices are burning alive or falling to the ground stories below. This was a war zone with no time to prepare, no military strategy meetings, no reconnaissance. They just had to act on their gut with a situation that no one had dealt with before. As I watched interview after interview I was moved as over and over again I heard these men and women talk about their "job." They went into those buildings to save people because that is what their job was. Without a thought they did what they had to do. Total strangers stayed with people who were injured. Random people that fate dealt a terrible hand placing them on a plane together that was doomed that day banded together to do what they could to say "not today" to the terrorists on their flight and forced the plane to crash. There was one moment in the series, and it was a piece of footage that had been taken from a reporter on the scene. He is passing a fireman by a firetruck who is taking a small rest after rescue efforts, and you can tell the reporter is trying for a hero angle, and the fireman answers with what almost seems like irritation, "It's my job!" As if to say, I am not a hero, this is what I do. I will try my best to save as many people as I can. This is who I am. Was the series hard to watch? ABSOLUTELY! But there was also hope. Hope that we can be that America again, the America that cares about other people, that puts other's needs before our own. Almost 3000 people died that day, and if they can see the country we have become in the 20 years that have passed, I hope they can forgive us. I pray that we try to become who we were.

Falling Angels

Today is Friday, September 13^th, but I am not going to write about black cats crossing my path or walking under a ladder being bad luck or all of the theatre superstitions I TOTALLY follow. Today, I want to write about something that everyone was writing about 2 days ago, September 11^th. This is not going to be a minute by minute reminiscence of what I went through that day 18 years ago. This will be more about the feeling I had then and still. On the eleventh I was scrolling through Facebook, I usually do that once a day now, far less than I used to, but I came across a post of an article on my feed. I follow the comedian Elayne Boosler, and she had posted a beautiful article that ran in Esquire magazine called The Falling Man. If you are old enough to actually remember details about that day in the late summer of 2001, you know exactly what this article was about. If you are not, you are lucky. A tiny bit of backstory about me and that day. I have a very photographic memory, not the kind that is instant recall of books I’ve read or papers I’ve seen. My eyes are not cameras, but life event emotions and feelings, I can play them back in my head just like they are a movie, and certain memories are not the kind you want to see over and over again. Unfortunately, once I’ve seen it, I can’t shake it. 9/11 was filled with those pictures. For that reason, I did not watch the news for several days after it happened. It was easy immediately after because I was working at an elementary school, and we were told not to discuss it with the children. No TV’s were on. The days that followed were harder for this TVholic, but I purposely kept the set off. One of the first images I did see, and I think it was in print was a photo of 2 people falling past one of the Towers. They had jumped out of the windows of the Skyscraper. I was overcome with sadness, and a sick feeling welled up inside of me. The desperation, the fear, the absolute horror these people must have felt to leap out of a window 100’s of floors above the ground. Let me pause here and say, I have never had suicidal thoughts. I don’t know what that’s like, but I know that they exist, and are very hard to fight. However, if I had been on the floor with those people that day, I may have made the same choice. And here’s the thing, I do not believe they were committing suicide but instead choosing how they would die that day. They knew that death was inevitable. They knew they were not getting out of this situation alive. They chose “Escape” that day, escape from choking smoke and intense heat, and literally burning alive, and damn anyone who judges them for the choices they made. Yet we have shunned those images and put them away quietly. Whenever someone does speak of them, people freak out. How awful that someone took pictures of that! How disrespectful! How demeaning! The Esquire article was a beautiful tribute to these people. Why have they been left out of “NEVER FORGET?” If anything, I think those images paint a very clear picture of the fear of that day and exactly what was happening. Terrorists decided to execute hundreds of people that day. The people who jumped that day simply wanted the dignity to die in their own way. They were not going to let someone else decide how they would die. People jumped from the Hindenburg, and they were the ones who survived. I am sure they did not know as they jumped from the massive, ball of flame that they would land alive. No one judges them. The heroic people of Flight 93 chose to wreck their plane into a field knowing they would die, but they would thwart evil by doing it. They are revered and remembered as well they should be! Some place the number at 200 people who jumped or fell from the Towers that day. 200 people that we don’t want to remember. These are the images that show us how horrible it was in a mental capacity, and that makes us uncomfortable. We wonder if we might have made that choice, and that scares us. Faced with burning alive, I am not ashamed to say, I would have, as I read in the beautiful article in Esquire, “jumped into the arms of God” with full faith that he would catch me and take me home. God bless all of the “Falling” Angels. I remember you, and grieve for you and mourn the loss of your soul in this world.

"O Beautiful for Heroes Proved"

Nine years ago I was standing in the front office of the elementary school I was working for. I was getting ready to announce a new incentive program for good behavior in the lunch room over the PA. Just before I was to speak, one of the secretaries told me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I didn't believe her. I thought she must be mistaken. As I made my announcement I didn't think another thing about it because I never dreamed that what she had said was true until the announcements were over. By then the second plane had hit, and started the beginning of a flood of feelings that would run the gamut for the next several hours. The effects of that day would last much longer. Because we were working in an elementary school we were instructed not to talk about what had happened with the children. The decision was made to let the parents of the students discuss the events of the day in their own way. I remember leaving the office and walking down the hall. I wanted to go outside, get some air. I wanted to be with my own children. I wanted to hold them, see their faces. I purposely didn't watch the footage. I have somewhat of a photographic memory, and I just didn't want those images in my head. The day went on forever. We kept the radio on in the workroom, away from the children. We heard the reports of the Pentagon and Flight 93. I thought, "How long is this going to go on?" I felt so many things, shock, disbelief, sick-to-my-stomach, sadness, but the one thing I didn't feel was fear. I don't know why, but I knew I was safe. I have always lived with the feeling that when it is my time, it is my time. There is nothing I can do about it. When I came home that afternoon, I talked with my children, 5 and 8 at the time. My youngest asked me, "Are they coming here?" Now, I must pause at this time to tell you that I live my life with the truth. I do not lie. At the end of every email that I send is this quote by Marcus Aurelius, "If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not truth, do not say it." So when the question was asked, I answered truthfully that I did not know, but that we couldn't live our lives everyday in fear.
So many things changed that day for all of us, all of us in our homes , in our communities, in our country and in our world. Our land of the free and home of the brave had been shattered. We would never again hear a jet flying low overhead and not have just a hint of fear. We would never again arbitrarily pick up a backpack left on a park bench and look through it for the owner's information. It would take us a long while before we would be totally comfortable flying again, and some of us still don't. Innocence was stolen that day, and things will never be the same. It's called terrorism for a reason.
But for all the bad things that came out of that day, the world also saw unity, heroism, courage and bravery beyond anything that could be imagined. So when you remember that day, think of those people who were thrown into a situation they never dreamt they would face and met the challenge with grace and selflessness and put others before themselves. Be thankful and honor their sacrifices by never forgetting 9-11-01.