On this day, I remember my father and give thanks that I still have my brother with me by sharing a chapter from Choosing Life:
NEW YORK CITY (2001) — SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, WAS ONE
of my lucky days. A Tuesday so I could skip the commute and work
from home. I was at the computer in my home office, and the radio
was playing in the background. A strange note in the announcer’s
tone made me stop and pay attention.
A plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers.
I visualized a small plane, a private pilot. Had he lost his bearings?
Had a heart attack? Then, another plane. How could two planes get
so lost? Not small craft but commercial airliners! Then the entire
WTC crumbling, one tower after the other! Oddly, unlike most people,
I did not think to turn on television, so I did not immediately see
the images. Even though I saw them later, I still hear rather than see
the shocking news in my mind.
And then I froze. Was my brother at work yet? Almost 9 AM.
I knew his subway stop was under the WTC. He worked as a computer
developer on Wall Street. I called his cell phone and his home
number; sent emails, tried to reach his wife and children. Where was
my brother?
In the afternoon, at last, he walked in the door as I was instant
messaging with one of his sons. He had walked up the length of
Manhattan island from Wall Street to my grandmother’s old cooperative
apartment on the Upper West Side where he now lived with his
wife and two boys. He came on the computer:
blinkstare2001 (3:29:09 PM): Hi sis . . .
310
LESLIE A. SUSSAN
Goldylox41: oh god I was so scared for you. I have
hit redial for hours.
blinkstare2001: I was two blocks from the trade
center, at 75 wall when the center came down. I
was in the last subway train that made it into the
wall st station before they stopped service.
Goldylox41: thank god . . .
blinkstare2001: All of downtown ny is covered
with dust and millions of pieces of paper. Survivors
were taking refuge with us, covered with inches of
white dust.
The most scary thing I have ever seen. We did
not know if we were next as JP Morgan is just
as big a symbol as the WTC. I am probably in
shock somewhat.
As I walked uptown, behind us was the huge black
cloud where the center used to be. It felt like walking
away from Hiroshima . . .
Paul was unhurt. At least that day, although he had respiratory
problems afterward. His boys spent a long day wondering if they still
had a dad. No one can know how long the ripples will spread from
that one explosion as they have from that earlier Ground Zero.
Even that first day, both of us realized that our father’s worst
nightmare — those images that had ambushed him in the streets of
New York City — had materialized before his son’s eyes. Manhattan
was the new Ground Zero. My father’s war had followed him home
after all.
As perhaps all wars do in the end, as long we continue to
fight them.
