I remember that we chose to drive
into work that day. It was brilliant and
cloudless, an unreal brilliant blue full of longing for childhood days spent
out of doors. I was wearing a skirt with
new shoes, honoring the loveliness with my outfit. We drove through the Battery Tunnel, not
knowing that my anal retentive need to be early had delivered us to safety and
relatively freed us from chaos.
I remember my boss asking me if I
had heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I gave him my best “WTF” look. After all, I had just passed by there in the
car, maybe 15 minutes earlier. Minutes
later, we would scramble to get to the proper windows when we heard that
another plane had hit the second tower. I
went to the bathroom to doctor the back of my new shoes with padding, because
they were blistering my feet, too bewildered to make sense of any of it. Coming back to my desk, my husband was
standing there, pushing me to grab my things and GO. I told him that I couldn’t just walk out of
work. He told me to look around; the
rest of the office had already done the same.
I suddenly remembered that my mother worked on the tip of Manhattan and
tried to call her. Of course, there was
nothing but a busy signal. We left.
I remember he had the presence of
mind to stop at an ATM, not knowing how or if banks would be affected. We walked back to his office, though it
probably wasn’t the brightest place to be, located down the block from the
UN. The collective group stood around
the large screen TV, watching as smoke, ashes, and people came through the
windows. Watching as the first and then
the second tower collapsed. My brain
would not, could not process what it was seeing. I called my parents and discovered that my
father had not heard from my mother; we didn’t know where she was. Hours later, I thought to check my answering
machine, where I found frantic phone calls from my best friend, her mother, and
her mother in law, all trying to find me.
Located in Chicago, she could not remember where in Manhattan I
worked.
I remember finally calling her
office, and having the receptionist screech, “Oh my gosh, don’t hang up! I’m going to get her!” Apparently, *all* of the hospice she worked
at was waiting for me to call. I called
my father again, and finally exhaled when he told me that mom had walked across
the Brooklyn Bridge, found a safe place to wait, and he was leaving to go get
her. I walked outside into the empty
neighborhood and found the only shop still open and bought myself comfortable
clothing and sneakers, no longer able to stand being dressed for an ordinary
work day. More hours later we attempted
to drive home, only to be caught on the road as building 7 collapsed. We were herded into Queens, and were lucky
enough to have family to stay with overnight.
We called as many friends as we could, reassuring and being reassured
that all were safe. I closed my eyes
that night, but did not sleep.
I remember going outside the next
day, and the hideously painful sound of a silent New York City. We finally made our way home through the
streets. I desperately wanted, bone deep
needed, my home, my bed, my normal.
I remember the phone call
shattering the fragile peace; a friend informing us that his brother in law was
missing. He wasn’t supposed to be at the
World Trade Center that day, but somehow he was. I remember my husband’s irritation that I
wouldn’t give up my desperate need to collapse and sleep and go to them. I remember that I couldn’t find the words to
tell him that after hours upon hours of numb, my brain could NOT function
anymore, and was protecting itself the only way it could, by forcing me to shut
down. I remember repeating, “I can’t…I
just can’t”, over and over again, and failing to bridge that enormous
communication gap. I remember that
because I couldn’t, I was alone when the pain and the tears finally hit. I remember days later, when we all realized
that he would never come home again.
I remember the stories that would
take hours, days, years to come out. A
friend who should have been on a different PATH train and would have been under
the towers. Someone’s mother, who made
it out. Someone’s boyfriend, who worked
for Cantor Fitzgerald. Ashes that made
lower Manhattan a permanent graveyard.
I am working in lower Manhattan
today. I remember.
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