September 11

I have no stories of personal tragedy on September 11, 2001, thank God.

That day was the perfect fall day. There was that crisp bite in the air, a nice breeze, no humidity, low-70s temperatures, and not a cloud in the sky. I had been unemployed at that point for just under a month, having moved back up from Maryland due to a relocation for my wife’s career. I was going to the town library early in the morning, and must have got there right after 9 o’clock after it just opened.

Very strange. The few people in there were huddled together, talking, weird expressions on their face. I quickly found the book that I wanted and checked out. The librarian seemed in pain and examined my face for an uncomfortably long time. I had no clue what was going on. Then she did something extremely bizarre. She reached out and seized my hand. “Do you know what’s happening?” she asked me. When I shook my head, she said, simply, “We’re being attacked. They’re attacking us with planes.”

Now, my first reaction, after retrieving my hand, was to think that this lady was completely nuts, except for the fact that there was this weird pallor over everyone there. I high-tailed it out the doors and to my car. I don’t think there was anything playing on the radio. That scared me. Driving the mile or so back to my apartment, I scanned the skies, expecting to see military aircraft soaring overhead and possibly foreign troops parachuting down.

I got home and switched on the TV. Some stations were snowed out. That ratcheted up the fear more. If you’re invading a country, I reasoned, one of the first things you do is knock out the enemy’s means of communication. But it was only a couple of the low channels that were out. Most were working –

Then I saw the image of one of the towers burning. And then, a minute or two later, a second plane few straight into the other tower, igniting in a fireball.

I sat down, horrified, numb, uncomprehending. The station kept replaying the crashes, over and over and over.

My wife was in New York City that morning for a meeting. I called her cell, and got nothing. Dead.

I called my mother at her work; they were watching TV there, too. Nobody really knew what was going on. But within an hour or two it was established that it apparently was an isolated incident. Well, there was the crash/attack on the Pentagon and reports of a downed airliner in Pennsylvania. All commercial flights were grounded, and that appeared to be the extent of it.

An anxious afternoon passed until my wife was finally able to communicate with me via her cell. She had been in Penn Station during the attacks, about two or three miles north of the World Trade Center. Still too close. And she’d be unable to get back to New Jersey. She and her colleague were somehow able to get out to Long Island and they were going to stay at another worker’s home overnight. It was not until the following evening that I saw her again.

A year later I was working in New York City on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks. It was very tense. I got into the city early, around 7 am, and it was a ghost-town compared to the normal pedestrian traffic I encountered. There was a rumor of radiation being detected on a ship in the harbor, but it turned out to be either completely false or blown out of proportion, I don’t remember which. I do remember being very glad to get back home that night.

I’ve read some of the profiles on those victims of the savages. Some have brought me nearly to tears: a young couple on one of the planes, on vacation, bringing their three-year-old daughter to her first visit to Disneyland. A man’s recorded phone call to 911, rising in panic as he describes that he’s trapped on one of the upper floors of one of the tower, his frightened “Oh God –” and then pure silence as the call is cut short. Sheer heartbreaking.

I pray that we are able to overcome and eradicate such pure evil. I pray for the brave and intelligent men and women who keep such evil from occurring again. I pray for the 3,000-plus victims of such barbarity. I pray for the innocent victims and the heroic ones. I pray that their sins may be forgiven, that they all may be given a free pass, and that they may all be brought into the arms of our Father in Heaven.