9/11 was my tragedy only in the sense that it was everyone's tragedy. I wasn't there. I no longer even lived in New York. I knew one person who died. Some knew dozens. Thousands lost immediate family.
I don't want to insinuate myself into others' tragedies but I do want to acknowledge them. Not to intrude but to honor. On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, there was a nationwide memorial. I know it was a moment of silence at the moments the planes hit. I think church bells might have rung. I found myself outside, about to get into my car, across the street from the home of a family that had lost a father. I felt as if I was intruding on their grief, usurping their pain, pain that I could not imagine. To lose a loved one is always hard, but to be forced to imagine the last moments of those victims is horrifying.
I have a vision of the only victim I knew. I see her with black smoke under her nostrils, the way I've seen the faces of fire victims. But that is just my imagination. No one alive saw her after the plane hit.
Valerie loved working at the World Trade Center. She loved showing it off. I remember eating lunch with her on the plaza while she extolled the virtues of the complex. I think of the crowds of young attractive people and wonder how many of them were at work when the planes hit.
Valerie had been a colleague with whom I was sometimes friendly. When she lived in Los Angeles, I'd get in touch when I was in town. She was serious about building her career. She thought I was hopeless, working too hard for too little money. She was right.
I saw her infrequently, the last time a summer or two before she died at her house in the Hamptons. After the disaster I didn't immediately put together that Valerie worked at Cantor, Fitzgerald. I could remember someone talking about Cantor. "Cantor this." "Cantor that." But as I watched the towers fall, I thought that I was witnessing the death of someone I knew. I don't know why I blocked that connection but I did.
When I lived in New York, I didn't go to the WTC that often. A few visits stick in my mind. Going to the observation deck with visitors. Fighting the wind on the plaza on a cold winter day. Sitting in the lounge at Windows on the World and looking out thinking how far away the nearest rooftop was. I concluded that even if I could string a pulley from the 107th floor to that roof by the time I reached the other building I would be traveling so fast the impact would kill me. Years later someone might have sat in that same spot, wondering the same thing--if they could see through the thick smoke. I don't think when I was imagining my escape I ever considered that could be someone's reality.
In later years, I'd go to the World Trade on business. I don't know what classes I attended or what companies I visited. I do remember one office and one especially fun contact. I recall looking out the window by his desk at the Statue of Liberty, so tiny from that height. I don't recall his name, so I'll never learn his fate.
There are strangers I think of in particular. I was often in an elevator or in an elevator lobby at 8:46. I would arrive early, get a snack in the mall area, and head up at 8:45 to a 9am appointment. How many of my fellow passengers were following that schedule on 9/11? It is painful to think what they went through.
When I first heard a plane had crashed into the North Tower, I didn't find it inconceivable. One night flying home from Albany on a commuter flight, our path down the Hudson and around the tip of Manhattan to LaGuardia took us so close to the building that I recall saying to myself, "Veal looks good."
I never went to the site after September 11th. I was in the area within a couple of weeks but didn't walk the few blocks to look. It felt wrong. It was not a tourist attraction. I'd been to the site after the 1993 bombing but that was because I visited a friend in the area. There was disruption but not widespread destruction. I don't remember any odor. There was no escaping the smell in 2001.
That night I took the Staten Island Ferry to my car (which I didn't even try to bring into Manhattan) and watched the site from the back deck. The scene was brightly lit letting me see the smoke that rose as high as the other buildings in the area. Maybe fifty stories of dust and smoke.
Driving out of New York on Christmas morning that year, I passed the wall covered with photos that had hung there for over three months. That is the closest I ever came to viewing the site with the exception of what I saw on a ride on the PATH train to New Jersey. I assumed the gaping hole had once been part of the complex. I've never been to the Memorial even though I once stayed at the W Hotel across the street. Somehow visiting the site felt intrusive. I think on my next visit to New York I will go. It's time.
The last time I recall seeing the Twin Towers was while landing at Newark on a flight from Seattle. I'd gotten to know the two boys beside me. In their early teens, they were on their way to a year in Israel. When I saw the WTC appear out our window, I interrupted them to point it out. They were excited. The sight of the Twin Towers could be exciting. When I lived in New York whether I saw them from a plane, train, or car, it was a sign I was almost home. When I didn't live in New York and drove by them on the New Jersey turnpike, they were part of a gorgeous view of Manhattan. I wrote a blog once about the ten most beautiful sights I'd ever seen. The WTC at sunset was one.
My plans for that week were to attend a wedding on 9/15 and fly to England on Monday 9/17. While I watched 9/11 unfold on TV I called my friend in England and asked if she was watching television. While she went to turn hers on, the Pentagon was hit. She asked if I was okay and I said I was fine. "I'm in a small town in Pennsylvania." We hung up and the next event was that a plane had crashed "in a small town in Pennsylvania." It was nowhere near me.
My trip was postponed. All flights were cancelled leaving the skies oddly empty except for the occasion military flight. I drove to the wedding in DC.
On that day I heard the most meaningful best man's speech ever. I can only paraphrase the ending. Walking to the ceremony in Georgetown, the best man passed an older woman who asked if he was headed to a wedding. When he said he was, she said, "I am so pleased that there is something happy happening today."
Hope. It really does spring eternal.
