I remember it was a beautiful day. Clear and crisp, with a lovely blue sky. My husband and I and our youngest daughter were living in Columbia, Missouri. It was Tuesday, so my husband was attending class in Kansas City.
My car was in the shop and I was driving my daughter’s little white Toyota. I had just dropped her off and was threading my way through traffic on Broadway, hoping I wouldn’t be late for work. When the traffic slowed I turned on the radio to catch the morning news, drumming my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. I was only half listening when I heard, “a plane is heading straight toward the the World Trade Center.” The announcer’s voice sounded confused. I felt confused.
But that was nothing compared to the announcement that followed: “A large passenger airliner just struck the north tower and burst into flames.”
The world slid to a stop. Everything became surreal. I thought, it surely must have been a mistake. But how could it be a mistake? Commercial pilots couldn’t possibly make such a tragic error, could they? Isn’t there a co-pilot to help in case the pilot can’t fly the plane? What happened to the passengers? Were there any survivors? What happened to the building?
I wanted to talk to someone. I needed to hear reassurance. I tried to call my husband, but he was in class and had turned his cell phone off. I called my other daughter in Kansas City. We spoke briefly. After I told her the news, what else was there to say?
I continued driving to work in daze. I turned the car into the parking lot next to the Heinkel building on 7th Street and found a spot. I got out and locked the door. I entered the building and walked up the stairs to my office.
I saw that everyone there had heard about the crash. Other than good morning, few words were spoken. I worked for Educational Technologies @ Missouri and our offices were next to the MU Fire and Rescue Training Institute, where they had a room with an enormous video monitor that took up half of one wall. Without a word we all trooped into that room and watched as panic erupted in the streets in New York. Shocked news reporters taped people rushing through the thick smoke and debris. People were jumping to certain death below. But they knew staying in the building was also a certain death.
No one yet knew the reason behind the catastrophe. In the absence of facts, speculation was that some tragic pilot error had occurred.
Then the second plane struck. We watched, dumbfounded, as the plane hit the second tower and became a ball of fire, and then we knew: This was no accident.
The enormity of the situation was too much to absorb. The reporters told us a third plane had struck the Pentagon, and that a fourth plane, allegedly heading toward the White House, had been taken over by passengers and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
Television reporters told us rescue workers were being mobilized to find and care for the wounded, but the annihilation was so complete there were no bodies. At least not whole ones. We heard that firefighters in heavy equipment had lumbered up the stairs of the second tower, and when they paused to rest the tower collapsed in upon itself. All perished.
We watched as long as we were able, then retreated to our offices. However, nobody could work, and we couldn’t tear ourselves away. I was struck by the silence in the room. Some people stood in stoic silence. Some wept openly. No one spoke.
I remember thinking, I’m dreaming. I’ll wake up. I can’t watch anymore.
But we watched, because the world as we’d known it no longer existed. We watched because we felt that by watching we were somehow helping to hold the world together.
In the winter of 1984 I had taken a trip to New York with my oldest daughter. We’d threaded our way through the streets, my hand firmly gripping hers, awestruck by the endless throngs of people. I remembered thinking it was like the crowd at a rock concert, only it never thinned. My daughter laughed to see a man running down the street, waving a package in his hand and calling out, “Fresh hot batteries here, rock bottom prices,” while a policeman ran after him. On the bus we sat next to a woman who asked, in all sincerity, “Do they celebrate Christmas in Missouri?”
Everywhere you went people were in your face. Hey, this is New York. This is a world like no other, and no other world existed outside New York City. Get out of the way. Get with the program.
I visited again in 2006, five years after the tragedy. I was immediately struck by the absence of those huge, elbow-to-elbow crowds. On the subway, on the bus, walking along the street, I was met with smiles. I thought I had stepped into yet another world.
Oh, sure, there were places that still reflected that in-your-face attitude, places where people were rude and unpleasant, but it felt like there was a layer of gentleness that softened the atmosphere. People breathed it in spontaneously, consciously or unconsciously, and just as spontaneously breathed it out in courteous gestures.
I realized that the aftermath of tragedy can be a healing force at all levels. After the initial anger dies away it compels us to listen and respond with openness, to be awake to everything. One by one.
Some listen.
I thought about the ensuing wars that followed that fateful day.
Some don’t.
