The mad rush to start school has all but passed. My kids are tucked safely into their little classrooms bursting with books and bright faces. The baby and I are happily enjoying our quiet time together at home. Somehow, in all this hustle I forgot to update this blog. Honestly, I didn’t have anything more than “where do you find college ruled poster paper with safety scissors at the 11th hour?!” to say, so you’re all probably better off.
And here I sit at 2 am, unable to sleep thinking, “Hmm.. maybe I’ll catch up on my to-do list!” The only trouble is that tomorrow is September 11th and there’s really only one thing to write about each year at this time.
People who don’t know me are always surprised to learn that I used to live in New York City. Maybe it’s the day/night yoga wear and four kids hanging all over me at all times. Maybe it’s the minivan and chicken menagerie in my back yard. I don’t know. I don’t care really, except that my time in New York is such a huge part of me, I feel a distinct loss when I hear that it’s not evident to others.
I’ve written about meeting my husband and falling in love there. I’ve talked about being pregnant and having my first child there. I’m pretty sure I’ve raved about the food and made jokes about my Rocky Mountain Girl manners being polished down the hard way by kindly New Yorkers who thought I stepped right off of the set of some weird Brady Bunch show. But I haven’t ever written about my experience on September 11th. It just seemed too personal, too raw. Eleven years later it still feels too raw.
But I ran into my niece tonight online and she shared her blog with me. She, being young and unafraid wrote unabashedly about her experience as a confused 7 year old that day. It was beautiful and heart breaking all at once. She asked some very important questions. I urge you to read it if you have time.
She also inspired me to share my own story, so here it is.
I woke up feeling fantastic. I had recently married the love of my life. We were curled up together in the 500 sq ft apartment we’d scrimped together to buy in Washington Heights. (Yep, that’s right.. Da Heights baby.) He left for work in a hurry as usual. I kissed him goodbye and wished in a happy day. Then I got ready at my own leisurely pace and sauntered to the A train.
It was such a beautiful morning I decided to get off at Columbus Circle and walk from the A to the R instead of transferring underground at Time Square like I normally did. I got off at the Columbus Circle stop and left via the north stairway so I could cut through central park and enjoy the glorious day. About the time I got to World Cafe I was feeling a mile high. I remember distinctly thinking.. “Today could be the best day of my life. Anything could happen today.” I was almost giddy, a stupid smile on my face as I stared at the perfectly blue sky scattered with puffy clouds. I didn’t want to, but I had to go back underground to catch the R across the East river to my office in Queens.
After that ride and another short walk to my building I opened the doors and said a cheery “Good morning!” to our security guard, she was a good friend of mine. She was staring at the flat screen TV in our foyer.
“Did you see it?” she looked strange, her face emotionless, not herself.
“See what? what are you talking about?” my heart fell.
“The airplane. Did you see it? It hit some buildings just now. I don’t know what’s going on.” She changed the channel again and again trying to find better reception and some sort of news coverage but nothing was coming in clearly or it was just preliminary guesses.
“A small private jet…” one announcer said.
“Possibly alcohol related…” another guess.
And static on all the other channels.
Then Bob rushed in… “Did you see it?”
“No! What is going on?”
He was a small man with a bushy but carefully manicured goatee. His face was white as a sheet making his facial hair stand out even more. He was obviously shaken and having trouble speaking.
“I saw it.. it hit the twin towers.. an airplane. I was driving over the Tapenzee and I saw it hit. We have to get upstairs.”
We followed him to the top floor where there was another television a couple of employees were trying uselessly to get reception on.
I kept picturing a small yellow biplane for some reason. In my mind that’s all I could see. It was the airplane I watched as a child swooping over the fields surrounding my home in Idaho, spraying chemicals to save the crops. Some how this little plane lodge itself in my brain, some crazy person flying it in a fit of fury, like an angry yellow bee plunging headlong into the side of the twin towers. It’s so small, I kept thinking… I couldn’t have hurt many people. It will be ok.
When we couldn’t get TV reception we gave up and started asking Bob what kind of plane it was, what it looked like when it hit, did the building seem to be on fire?
“It was HUGE! Massive! It had to be some sort of 747 or something. It just plowed right into the side…” Bob was starting to break down and someone took him to another room.
There were only a handful of us there that morning. Maybe 6 people. So when Kasmore came in and told us we could see downtown from the top floor library windows Ilana and I followed him there. I had to know. I had to have a visual. I had to see for myself that everything was going to be ok. It couldn’t be as bad as my imagination was picturing.
We grabbed plastic chairs like naughty school kids and climbed up to peer out the tiny windows. The image laid out before me is one that will never leave my mind: The towers were still standing, one had a massive gaping hole in the side. Smoke was pouring out of at least 30 floors. Then the second plane hit the second tower.
“My God.”
I was the only one who spoke and it was all I could say. Over and over again.
“My God.”
It wasn’t in vain. It was a prayer.
I immediately started calculating the number of people inside at that time in the morning. I calculated the number of people who made it down by now from the first tower. I started praying that the second tower had had the good sense to evacuate as soon as the first tower was hit.
The numbers were not good.
Then I started assessing the angles, wondering at the structural soundness of both towers, wondering at the bits of debris flying in all directions, raining on the streets below. I prayed that the people were getting out, that they were aware of the shrapnel and were taking cover.
I then calculated the time it would take to get the subway cars stopped that were crawling like moles through the tunnels below. I thought about the bombs that had gone off in the subways a decade earlier. I thought about the people getting off at that stop. I thought about my brother-in-law.
“Please God, please keep him safe.”
I thought about my husband.
Thirty days before September 11th, 2001, he got off at that stop to go to work at 6 in the morning. The next day he moved to his new office in midtown.
“Thank you God for moving him. Thank you God.”
And it was inevitable, the fires were too hot, the metal was bending, the angle was changing, it was all wrong.
“My God. They are going to fall…. it’s going to fall.”
I could feel Kasmore’s hand on my back and I was so grateful at that moment to be reminded that I wasn’t alone witnessing this horrific event.
“Thousands of people… there is no way they got them all out Ilana.” I turned to my other coworker. “They couldn’t’ have gotten out. They didn’t get out.”
We were all sobbing now. We were all in shock. We couldn’t’ look away for more than a second, more than a blink to wipe the tears.
We watched them fall. We watched them die. We were powerless. We stood a handfull of blocks away and watched the dust and smoke rise up where so many lives had been.
Someone came in and pulled me down from the chair. I was sobbing freely and had to be physically moved away from the window.
Ilana and I walked to the kitchen where they were still trying to get reception. Someone said, “Shut it off, it won’t work. The towers fell.”
We spent the rest of the morning debating what to do. We heard by radio that it was terrorists who’d done this thing to us. That they’d tried to take out the White House and the Pentagon but were almost thwarted completely in DC. A huge cloud was traveling up from Battery park. One employee who’d been in the military insisted that since it was terrorists they probably filled the planes with anthrax before they crashed them. He kept insisting we stay in the building until we knew for sure which way the cloud was going to travel.
I listened to his speech probably 15 times. I’m sure he was giving it more for himself than for us. But the more I heard it the more angry I got. I kept thinking.. If I’m going to die, I’m not going to die here.
I called my parents and told them I was ok. I didn’t think that they were still sleeping.
“What’s happened? what do you mean?”
“Just turn on CNN. I can’t tie up the lines.. I’m sorry, I have to go, but I’m ok. I just wanted you to know that, and that I love you.”
I grabbed what water bottles I could carry in my work bag and a couple of granola bars. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to take too much because if the others were stuck there for a few days they would need the food and water.
I’m a Mormon, we are taught from birth about rationing food in case of emergencies. I never thought I’d need that knowledge but I used it that day.
Ilana asked me what I was doing. I told her I was leaving. I would rather risk anthrax and terrorists and die with my new husband than sit around and have orders barked at me by the IT guy. I could tell she thought I was crazy, but she went with me.
We walked out, much to some of our coworker’s dismay, and entered the gorgeous September morning, once again.
This time the streets were flooded with people and cars. Everyone was walking quickly, a panic had settled over the borough like a light rain. Bodegas were filled with people trying to buy food and cigarettes. Children were crying on corners with their mothers trying to drag them along at too quick a pace.
Ilana and I talked, about what I can’t remember. I think we were planning, what to do, where to go. Her home was close, in Queens. Mine was far, at least a few miles, but I knew the way and was willing to walk, just to be home – to die in my home with my husband.
It sounds melodramatic now, but at the time, that’s what we all thought – what’s next? Am I next? Is my subway car going to make it to the next stop?
Only the subway wasn’t running. The buses weren’t running. The Manhattan bridge I’d hoped to walk across was blocked off, no access to Manhattan unless you could prove you were a healthcare provider. I wasn’t, I wasn’t anything. I wasn’t anyone. I was an artist, a girl from Idaho. I was one of the sheep in the throng trying to get somewhere not allowed.
Coming towards us on the bridge was one lane of traffic. They were letting people leave Manhattan to get home by car but what was astounding was the other five lanes of traffic. Each one was filled, shoulder to shoulder, by people. Each face was drawn and pale. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. They kept coming in waves. I watched for 20 minutes and there wasn’t one gap in the flow of people flooding out of Manhattan on foot. A small foot path to the far right side of the bridge had been designated for medical professionals to use and a steady trickle of lucky ones were allowed to cross against the flow back into the city, but I wasn’t one of them.
I started to lose hope. My heart started to sink as I watched the cloud from downtown loom ever closer. I’d been able to talk to Dan for a split second, which was a miracle in and of itself. The world trade center held aloft the major cell phone towers for the city. The smaller towers scattered around were now being flooded with calls to loved ones form every street corner. I got a hold of him two or three times for just a minute or two. We were able to agree to meet at a fountain on the east side. Whoever got there first would wait for the other – all day if we had to. I hoped that he had food and water and that he would wait for me.
But in the midst of my sorrow I saw a remarkable thing: a man in a minivan pulled up to the sidewalk next to me where a woman was comforting her child. They were obviously strangers, had never met before, but he leaned out his window and said, “Hey, are you ok? Where are you trying to get to? I have a few seats left if you want a ride.”
This was a Hispanic man, mid-thirties maybe, and if my memory is right, the woman he was speaking to was middle eastern, wearing a scarf over her head. She gratefully took his offer and ushered her little one inside the van and they took off.
Never, in all my years, had I seen something so kind. The day continued like that. In fact, for two weeks my city was filled with an outpouring of brotherly love the likes of which I have yet to see matched. I doubt I will ever see it matched. Strangers were kind, patient, and helpful to each other. Drivers and doormen were friendly and the air was filled with a camaraderie that I never would have dreamed could exist in New York City.
The Prophet Gordon B. Hinkley described it best when he said something to the effect of, “The hands of God are about you at this time.” It was palpable. We could all feel the hands of God upon us, blessing us, healing us, caring for us. It made us more aware of each other, of our losses, our blessings, our humanity and our love for one another.
I was eventually allowed on a 7 train. I eventually found Dan. A more beautiful reunion I don’t think we’ll have until one of us has died and is waiting for the other in heaven. We eventually got home. Eventually all our relatives afar heard the news and knew we were ok. Then all of our loved ones and relatives in the city were accounted for and were safe.
Miracles… after the tragedy we were surrounded by miracles on every side.
My brother-in-law stayed up late the night before helping my nephew with a project and slept in, deciding to go in to work late. My friend missed her ferry, another friend was sick. And on, and on, and on….
Two of my friends lost their loved ones, but two, while it is two too many, out of thousands, is a miracle for me.
We tried to watch television to find out what was happening, if there would be more attacks, if the subways were safe, if the city was still under quarantine, if we all had anthrax… but after a few hours of grotesque stories and images we had to turn it off. They kept showing the towers fall over and over again.
When you see something like that with your own two eyes, you can’t watch it on television. There’s a cheapness to it. It is a fraud. It becomes a thing of entertainment, possibly made up in a toy movie set. It is removed from your heart.
We sat in our little apartment for three days. We watched some of the memorial service at Yankee Stadium. We were afraid when we finally ventured out to ride the subways to work again. It took two hours instead of 45 minutes for me to get to my office that first day back because we had to keep stopping for bomb threats.
The first time I flew on an airplane after September 11th every logical bone in my body told me that the odds of MY plane being taken over by terrorists and crashed into 3,000 unsuspecting people were infinitesimal. But I was still terrified.
And yet, I was grateful for the new city I lived in. New York City was new again. After a few weeks most people went back to their regular hustle and bustle, annoyed by the “suspicious package” stops and armed men at subway gates (“What are they going to do? shoot anyone with a bulky coat?”) But there was still a lingering bond.
We survived.
So forgive me if I don’t stand up and sing the songs or watch the specials on TV or post the patriotic pictures on my facebook page. It’s not real for me there. It doesn’t matter for me there. It’s in my heart, and always will be. The people I stood at that window with will always be there as well. The man on the subway in an Armani suit covered in dust, his head in his hands and blood specks on his arm, always will be in my heart. The site of Dan, worried and tired, waiting for me at that fountain will always be in my heart. A poorly Photoshopped image of a flag and an eagle won’t cut it for me.
Tomorrow I’m going to tell the people that matter the most to me that I love them, that I’m so grateful for them. I’m going to tell my friends from that office that I’m grateful for them, that I’m grateful we are still friends and I hope we always will be. I’m going to take a nap with my sweet baby and I’m going to eat chocolate. I might even listen to WNYC as they read off the names of those who died and have another good cry.
But if I seem bitter or cold or depressed, just know that I’m not really. I’m serious. I’m healing, I’m remembering and I’m praying. Always praying.
Scribble Leigh 
