I’ll never remember 9/11 like other Americans. For me 9/11 will always be a far more personal memory of a disaster that had nothing to do with Twin Towers.
A story of 9/11 is below the fold...
We began talking as we waited for the tram to come and claim us. She was an older woman, like myself; one of those "non-traditional" students. The years weighed rather heavily on her face as if perhaps morning had come too soon for her that day. Her words soon animated her face into a youthful mask as we discussed a flyer about a concert featuring Nelly. We both agreed that Nelly was not a good "live" performer and that Usher would be a much better show. As we extolled the physical attributes of Usher, I was struck by the thought of the picture we would present to a "traditional" student were they to eavesdrop. I imagined the musings that would run through the head of a 22 year old as they listened to these two 40-something students dismiss the talents of Nelly in favor of the merits of Usher. A smile must have exploded onto my face at this thought because the lady returned it in kind.
The tram arrived and we ascended our coach and continued our ramblings. I’m not sure how it happened, but soon we were discussing racial issues. As the lady was an African-American I’m not sure that this was too awfully odd. She addressed the need to educate children, from birth on, to: "Accept every human being for what they were and not the color of their skin." I, of course, agreed and listened as she went on to describe her experiences of what had happened to her during the 9/11 debacle and the days that followed. She was in New Jersey "Of all places" and unable to leave after the melee. As she described the calamitous events of that day, she marveled most at the expressions of commonality that were exhibited by all who gathered in the streets to wonder and mourn. "People were hugging each other without even thinking about who they were hugging. We were just people huddling together for support and no one thought about the color of the person they were hugging. I wish that this attitude could be taught to every American child."
She went on to describe the days following as days of "coming together" in patriotic unison. "Within a day, people were putting up flags everywhere and coming together as one nation to express their anger and sadness about what had happened. Overnight, every window on the street where I was staying was covered by flags. I have never felt so accepted in my life as I did in those days following 9/11. We were all together in our grief." I contemplated in sadness that it had taken a national disaster for this woman to feel a sense of belonging in a nation that she had lived all her life. Her stop came up and as she prepared to disembark I thanked her for her perspective of an event I had all but missed. "I was so absorbed in my husband’s illness that I did not experience what most Americans did that day or even in the months following 9/11. My grief was not that of the nation, but a personal one." She left with an apologetic smile, common to me now, one that says "I’m sorry for you loss but I don’t know what to say."
As the tram drove away bearing me to my parking spot, I thought about my feelings about 9/11 and the events I experienced during that time. I allowed myself to indulge in a flashback to that day. I had worked the night before and my schedule of 6:00 pm to 6:00 am dictated that I sleep during the day. That day, it was particularly important that I get my sleep as on 9/12/01 I had to drive my husband Nate to Barnes hospital in St. Louis for his first round of chemotherapy and radiation. I remembered waking that afternoon at about 5:30, Nate beside me on the dual recliner watching the television screen intently while muttering obscenities. He stopped long enough to grab up his cell phone and angrily type in a number. "So, what is the price now?" He asked some invisible cohort. "$3.00! I am going to call the Attorney General and complain. That is gouging!" My eyes strayed to the television screen as I contemplated whether I wanted to pretend to still be asleep or display my readiness to wake and greet the night. I wondered what had set my husband off this time. I hoped the television screen would give me an answer and I turned my full attention to the glowing apparitions portrayed there. On the full screen there were two burning buildings and in a smaller inset window, an airplane was displayed crashing into another building. I decided to sit up and announce my return from torpidity, "What’s going on?"
Nate gave me that squinty-eyed "I’m on the phone" look and turned away. I stared at the silent screen for a few minutes, waiting for him to finish his soliloquy about someone who had obviously angered him into some action or another. When he finished, he first addressed the silence of the TV by waving the remote at it and activating its sound facilities. Wolf Blitzer and some female counterpart immediately obeyed his command and their professional intonation began filling the room with babble. "Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center this morning and one went into the Pentagon" my husband interjected, finally answering my waking query. "No way. You’re joking, right?" I waited for the punch line. My husband was a notorious practical joker. "Way, Blue. Look!" I looked at the screen he was pointing at and it promptly confirmed what he had just told me. "Who did it? Was it another McVeigh?" I asked, wondering who on earth would make such a drastic statement. "Arab terrorists. At least, that’s what they are saying. They’ve shut down every airport in the country and there are thousands of people stranded all over the country. They think there may be more attacks on national monuments and big cities. Maybe the Arch in St. Louis."
My next thoughts were of a selfish nature and would set the tone for the way I would deal with this catastrophe. "Can we still go to St. Louis tomorrow?" Obviously I had unwittingly touched upon the center of my husband’s ire as his face turned into an ugly mask of disgust, his eyebrows joining to form a unibrow and his mouth pinching to spit out the words. "F-cking gas is up to $3.00 a gallon at Country Junction!" Country Junction was our local convenience store and Lynn our friendly local owner. Of course, local is relative in a rural setting... it was 7 miles from our home and the only gas station for 15 miles. "$3.00 a gallon? Why?" He ignored my question and went on, "I got gas as soon as I heard about it. I filled up the Tracker at the regular price but when I went back to fill up the truck, Lynn had raised the price up to $2.00 a gallon. Now Bob says it is up to $3.00 a gallon. God knows what the prices will be like on the way to St. Louis!" His diatribe was interrupted by his cell phone shrieking for attention. He picked it up and instead of responding with a friendly greeting, he spat some more at the unknown caller. "Yeah, what do you want?" He listened and then responded with a bitterness I can only describe as caustic, "I don’t care about what happened in New York. I have cancer and all I care about is getting to St. Louis for treatment. The only way any of this affects me is whether or not I’ll be able to get there." Understandably, the phone call did not last much longer after that.
"They hit the Pentagon too." Nate’s attention returned to me. "Are Pat and Mike and the girls okay?" my thoughts went to Nate’s sister who lived near Washington, DC. They both worked for the government and they and their children had just moved there in July. "Yeah. I talked to Pat this morning before the phone lines got all screwed up by everybody and his mother calling DC. Mike had to guard the White House with a handgun and was out directing traffic in front of the Pentagon. The girls are scared to death and Pat left Justice early to go home to them." It was calming him down to talk about his sister, so I stuck with that subject for awhile. "Mike out directing traffic? What a job for an agent! Was he close to where it hit?" Nate’s eyes went back to the hypnotic screen shots of a plane hitting a building over and over and over again. "I think he was at the Pentagon when it happened. Pat was over at Justice. Mike still hasn’t got home yet and Pat thinks he will be working all night. He just called her to tell her he was okay and what they had him doing and hasn’t called since." I was glad to hear that they were okay. Pat had been one of my primary support resources since Nate’s diagnosis and consequent surgery. I was isolated enough without losing one of my outside contacts. Cancer had changed many aspects of our lives and my objectivity had been one of the first victims. I had tunnel vision and there was no room in my narrow world for anything that did not apply to the disease that had taken over my husband’s body and our lives.
Our trip to St. Louis the next day was not spent discussing the ramifications of 9/11 or what action the vacationing President Bush would take. We did not dwell on Al Qaeda, how many had died or the bravery of the firefighters. No mention was made of Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld. Instead we discussed radiation and how it was to be administered. We delved into a heady repartee about the vitamins we had purchased to keep Nate’s immune system on an even keel during chemotherapy. We debated what a chemo port was and how it could be installed in a human chest. We did not scan the skies for planes; we scanned the outer roads for gas prices. Over the next few weeks, we may have touched on the 9/11 subject briefly, but our foci was on the treatment and the levels of cancer still present in Nate’s blood. While we may have mentioned Afghanistan in passing, we spoke of the hospital more often. Our nightly walks may have included a comment or two about the terrorists, but more often centered on Nate’s fevers, which were cresting at 100ْ and would not abate. Our thoughts did not venture to what actions would be taken against the evil ones, instead we explored whether the actions of our doctors would be successful. In short, while the rest of the world lived and relived the disaster on a daily basis, we lived and relived our own personal hell and tried to come to terms, not with what had happened in New York, but what was happening in St. Louis.
Most people I’ve talked to since that time remember horror and fear. I remember horror and fear as well, but mine was of a personal nature. Not vicarious grief for those who lost their lives simply because they went to work that morning. My grief was for the one I watched lose his life on a daily basis. While rows and rows of widows and their progeny were paraded across the screens of America’s mass media in those coming months, I was silently living the life of a real world widow. No one offered me compensation for my husband’s death although it was just as senseless as the victims of 9/11. Their grief was portrayed as more significant than mine, because the death their loved ones had suffered was one of heroism. The heroism I knew was my husband, three days before he died, telling his friends that if he could only go back to work for 30 more days, his benefits would be extended and his family would be taken care of. My anger colored my view of those days. On the day my husband was buried, the 21-gun-salute that he deserved as a member of local law enforcement was denied because President Bush was flying in to promote his invasion of Afghanistan. In a town less than 20 miles from the cemetery where I listened to the strains of a bagpipe playing "Amazing Grace", President Bush tried to convince the world that attacking the country that had supposedly trained the attackers made sense; "One of the things that the evil ones didn't figure out was how strong we are. Oh, they knew we had a nice military, but they didn't think we'd use it. They made a bad mistake." To me, the only evil one was cancer and it had prevailed, no matter how strong Nate was.
I’ll never remember 9/11 like other Americans. For me 9/11 will always be a far more personal memory of a disaster that had nothing to do with Twin Towers.
KLM/2005