Memento Mori
I don't have anything profound to say about 9/11. Not now. Maybe I never will. I have to acknowledge it though. I have to remember it, because for some people that live in my area, their lives will never be the same. Whether they are survivors, who got out somehow, or weren't at work that day, or family and friends that lost loved ones, there are lives that will be indelibly inked with that day as if tattooed. Then there are all the dead -- gone, and by most people, forgotten. The individual lives faded into a mass of collective loss. The individuals are mostly remembered only by those whose lives they touched. Their names were read today at least.
I will never forget that day. I was driving to work. I got a phone call from out of state. I couldn't fumble with the cell while I was driving, so I let it go to voicemail. I checked the voicemail when I pulled into the parking lot, and it was a friend of mine saying she was watching TV, and there were planes flying into the World Trade Center. I called her back: "WHAT?" She started to explain. I walked into work, people were shell-shocked, somber, panicked, upset, the entire range of emotions. People were phoning their spouses who worked in the city. I raced into my cubicle and called my two best friends in New York city. My friend L. already knew because she smelled the smoke and saw the ash and darkness in the air, heard the sirens, and she was on the Upper West Side, miles away from ground zero. She had the TV on and was watching what was going on. I called my other close friend J. in the Bronx and told him not to get on the subway, not to go into Manhattan (which I feared he might because of going to his grad school there). He was still asleep when I rang him, we spoke, he was groggy and safe. I was relieved about them both being safe. However, I still paced the office, and looked out the windows. It seemed inconceivable to me that this was happening because as I looked out the windows it was the most beautiful, picture postcard perfect Autumn day; the sun was shining, the sky was blue and nearly cloudless, and the trees were green and lush, and blowing in a slight breeze. Yet I knew that less than 45 minutes west of this idyll, something catastrophic was happening, of which I didn't even know the proportions. We weren't allowed internet access, so we couldn't get on CNN.com or anything. There were no TV's, and only a few people in the office had radios. We were all trying to find out what was happening.
We were sent home early at 3pm. All major roadways were closed and I had to take back roads home. A less than half an hour drive took me over two hours, due to the route and abnormally heavy traffic. I was exhausted, and frayed when I arrived. My stomach had been sick all day.
When I got home I crawled into bed and turned on the TV. I watched coverage for about seven hours straight trying to get my head around it. Little did I know, that intense saturation with the horrific images and stories would give me many weeks of nightmares. I just felt like I needed to watch it till I could snap out of shock, till it could seem real. But it was unreal.
I wanted to hop a train and go into the city and help, do something, but my best friend assured me I would not be able to cope with the air quality with my asthma. Everyone was walking around wearing masks. There was building rubble and ash, and human remains floating in the air. L. said the smell permeated the air, even in her neighborhood so far from the trade center.
I cried a lot. I hated that people were adopting a "business as usual" attitude at my office. I felt like life as we all knew it was over. Then the anthrax scares started. The company I was working for got some hoax mail with some fake powder in it, and then we had to go through this seminar on biochemical weapons, terrorism, and all sorts of safety stuff that made me feel like I was in some kind of bad dream. I worked in IT and I was getting some weird de-briefing on what to do in case of biological weaponry?
At Thanksgiving dinner with my extended family I found out that a sorta step-"cousin" of mine, the son of my uncle's second wife, had been in the second tower and got out. He ignored the overhead announcement that said tower one was on fire, but stay put. His officemates all acted tough and decided to stay. They all died. My "cousin" quit his job in finance and took his girlfriend on a sailing trip that lasted months. Somewhere on the open waters he proposed to her. They got married, and I don't know what they're up to now because I'm not very close to my uncle and his blended family anymore.
The bottom line is, I didn't lose anyone I knew. I was one of the lucky ones. Some little towns near me lost twenty-five people, and those twenty-five may have been connected to hundreds of others lives in that town. The ripple effect of all these losses was staggering. So many people here commute to the city for work, so many local people were devastated by losses. We also have firefighters and cops who work in the city as well. The sadness was in the air for so long. I went into the city for the first time a few months later and the shrines in front of firehouses, and down in the subways, and on the streets were still there. Missing persons photos and flyers were still up. I was with a friend from California, and was showing her around, and we both got teary-eyed at times.
This year, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 remembrances took on a different meaning, knowing that so many people are presently suffering. The hearts, minds and charity of many New Yorkers goes out to the displaced, missing and departed ones from the storm. Yet, there are still people grieving for their dead after four years, because the pain of losing loved ones never goes away; even more so in so many deaths that had no closure, no body, and certainly no last goodbye.
New York will never be the same, and really, it shouldn't be.
I will never forget that day. I was driving to work. I got a phone call from out of state. I couldn't fumble with the cell while I was driving, so I let it go to voicemail. I checked the voicemail when I pulled into the parking lot, and it was a friend of mine saying she was watching TV, and there were planes flying into the World Trade Center. I called her back: "WHAT?" She started to explain. I walked into work, people were shell-shocked, somber, panicked, upset, the entire range of emotions. People were phoning their spouses who worked in the city. I raced into my cubicle and called my two best friends in New York city. My friend L. already knew because she smelled the smoke and saw the ash and darkness in the air, heard the sirens, and she was on the Upper West Side, miles away from ground zero. She had the TV on and was watching what was going on. I called my other close friend J. in the Bronx and told him not to get on the subway, not to go into Manhattan (which I feared he might because of going to his grad school there). He was still asleep when I rang him, we spoke, he was groggy and safe. I was relieved about them both being safe. However, I still paced the office, and looked out the windows. It seemed inconceivable to me that this was happening because as I looked out the windows it was the most beautiful, picture postcard perfect Autumn day; the sun was shining, the sky was blue and nearly cloudless, and the trees were green and lush, and blowing in a slight breeze. Yet I knew that less than 45 minutes west of this idyll, something catastrophic was happening, of which I didn't even know the proportions. We weren't allowed internet access, so we couldn't get on CNN.com or anything. There were no TV's, and only a few people in the office had radios. We were all trying to find out what was happening.
We were sent home early at 3pm. All major roadways were closed and I had to take back roads home. A less than half an hour drive took me over two hours, due to the route and abnormally heavy traffic. I was exhausted, and frayed when I arrived. My stomach had been sick all day.
When I got home I crawled into bed and turned on the TV. I watched coverage for about seven hours straight trying to get my head around it. Little did I know, that intense saturation with the horrific images and stories would give me many weeks of nightmares. I just felt like I needed to watch it till I could snap out of shock, till it could seem real. But it was unreal.
I wanted to hop a train and go into the city and help, do something, but my best friend assured me I would not be able to cope with the air quality with my asthma. Everyone was walking around wearing masks. There was building rubble and ash, and human remains floating in the air. L. said the smell permeated the air, even in her neighborhood so far from the trade center.
I cried a lot. I hated that people were adopting a "business as usual" attitude at my office. I felt like life as we all knew it was over. Then the anthrax scares started. The company I was working for got some hoax mail with some fake powder in it, and then we had to go through this seminar on biochemical weapons, terrorism, and all sorts of safety stuff that made me feel like I was in some kind of bad dream. I worked in IT and I was getting some weird de-briefing on what to do in case of biological weaponry?
At Thanksgiving dinner with my extended family I found out that a sorta step-"cousin" of mine, the son of my uncle's second wife, had been in the second tower and got out. He ignored the overhead announcement that said tower one was on fire, but stay put. His officemates all acted tough and decided to stay. They all died. My "cousin" quit his job in finance and took his girlfriend on a sailing trip that lasted months. Somewhere on the open waters he proposed to her. They got married, and I don't know what they're up to now because I'm not very close to my uncle and his blended family anymore.
The bottom line is, I didn't lose anyone I knew. I was one of the lucky ones. Some little towns near me lost twenty-five people, and those twenty-five may have been connected to hundreds of others lives in that town. The ripple effect of all these losses was staggering. So many people here commute to the city for work, so many local people were devastated by losses. We also have firefighters and cops who work in the city as well. The sadness was in the air for so long. I went into the city for the first time a few months later and the shrines in front of firehouses, and down in the subways, and on the streets were still there. Missing persons photos and flyers were still up. I was with a friend from California, and was showing her around, and we both got teary-eyed at times.
This year, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 remembrances took on a different meaning, knowing that so many people are presently suffering. The hearts, minds and charity of many New Yorkers goes out to the displaced, missing and departed ones from the storm. Yet, there are still people grieving for their dead after four years, because the pain of losing loved ones never goes away; even more so in so many deaths that had no closure, no body, and certainly no last goodbye.
New York will never be the same, and really, it shouldn't be.
posted by scribe at 9/11/2005
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