[I wrote this on June 8, but didn't really know what to do with it until now. If you read my last post, you'll notice that I used to work in the WTC, as did my neighbor, Nina. For those of you who are wondering, Sam is my son.]
Dear Sam:
You got new neighbors, and we met them for the first time today. It got me thinking, maybe this is a good time to write to you and begin to tell you the story of our lives.
Your new neighbors' names are Judd and Allison. They have a dog, named Tyler. I am sure they're good people -- they look to be young, and just starting out, sharing a small studio apartment. But as nice as I'm sure they'll turn out to be, I don't like them because they shouldn't be living there. It's not their apartment.
As you grow up, I imagine you'll hear a lot about "before", and always be cognizant that you live in the "after", even if you don't ever really understand why this is so. Before means before September 11, 2001, and after means the way the world is now. But as simple as that statement is -- after all, September 11, 2001 is just a date -- it's really not that simple.
Someday, you'll ask me and Mommy about what before really means, and we'll look at you and a thousand thoughts will go through our heads as we wonder whether it's time to spoil your innocence, time to place some of the weight of adulthood onto your shoulders. We'll struggle with how to explain terrorism to you, why people hate, and why they hated us so much that awful awful day. We'll wrestle with how to explain just how unreal it all felt -- how we went about our business on that morning just like a thousand mornings before and a thousand mornings after, how on that morning, it was just different, how on that morning people fell out of the sky because there was no place for them to escape to, no place that was safe, no place to wait for the rescue that surely had to be coming.
Someday, I will explain to you how I wandered around downtown, bewildered at what was going on, how I heard a rolling boom as loud as anything I had ever heard before, how that boom reverberated off of the canyon walls, how the crowd of people around me started running anywhere, any way, not knowing what they were running from but running just the same, and how the rolling cloud of dust came rushing out from between the buildings where just a minute ago there had been a street, how I ducked into an open door just in time to avoid being caught in that awful cloud of death, and how in the blink of an eye, a crisp, bright September morning became pitch black, blacker than any night I had ever seen before or hope to see again, and how a man, covered in soot and dust and ash so that he was white from head to toe came in and began to cry right there in the restaurant where I had run to, crying "it's gone, it's just gone" and how a woman was hysterical and we were so discombobulated by it all that the clerk at the restaurant charged me to buy her a drink and I paid him $20 and never got change. I'll tell you how we tried to call someone, anyone on the phones but couldn't get through, and so we tried again and again, just because there was nothing else we could do. Someday, I will explain to you how I walked 6 miles that day, just to get home to Mommy, to hug her forever, and wonder why I had left the house that morning. And someday, I will explain to you about Nina, our neighbor, and her dog Mir Mir, who lived in the apartment next door and were beginning a new life. And I will explain to you about the poster that showed up on the lamppost at the end of that awful week saying "Missing" just like a thousand other posters on a thousand other lampposts around the city, only this one had a picture of Nina on it.
We barely knew Nina, and most of what we knew of her, we knew because of Mir Mir, who was social and gregarious and eager to meet people in the hallway, and who yapped the way that only small yappy dogs can when you even glance at the door to the apartment. When we passed in the hallway, we'd chat about nothing, and when Mir Mir barked too loudly, Nina would apologize for him. I don't even remember her last name.
Nina had a spark. Like us, she had moved into the building when it was still unfinished -- no wallpaper in the hallways, hell, no carpet in the hallways -- and the elevators still encased in plywood sheathing to protect the walls from the dents and dings that inevitably accompany new construction. Nina struck me as someone who was embarking on a grand new adventure. I don't know for real if she was or wasn't, but I do know that she had a new job, a new apartment and looked like she was building a new life.
Nina worked for Aon, an insurance company. I have no idea what she did, but whatever it was, she did it on a high floor in one of the World Trade Center towers. Every day from June to September, Nina rode the 6 train to Brooklyn Bridge, or maybe she transferred to the 4/5 and took it to Fulton Street, and from there she walked the two blocks to the World Trade Center. Maybe she went and got her coffee at the Starbucks at the corner of Church and Dey, or maybe she stopped at the Xando Cosi in 4 WTC for a coffee, or maybe, if she was feeling decadent, she stopped for a Krispy Kreme donut ("Hot Now!") in Building 5. And then she walked across the Plaza to her building, took the escalator down to the lobby, and held her WTC ID card to the turnstile and waited for it to click, and then walked through and took an elevator to her office.
If she was anything like me, she thought it was incredibly cool to work in the World Trade Center, high above the street, looking out at those incredible views that tourists paid $12 to see from the observation deck. And the views were all the cooler because she got to see them everyday, for free. I'm sure she saw the views on that day, right at the moment that "before" became "before" and now became "after". I can't imagine how frightening it must have been for her, or how cruel the irony must have been when she realized that the fact that she had this stunning view would be the very thing that would kill her in the end.
I don't know if Nina made a last phone call to someone she loved, or whether she even could. I don't know exactly when or where or how she died, or how hard she clung to her life. All I know is that Nina didn't come home that surreal afternoon, the way that I did, and didn't scoop Mir Mir up under her arm the way she did every day, and didn't take him to the park to contemplate terrorists and hate and why people hated us so much that day that they had to kill us. All I know is that Nina's apartment sat vacant for nine months, and for nine months, that is the way that it was supposed to be because it was Nina's apartment.
On the day that you turned 6 and one half months old, Sam, there was a ceremony to commemorate the end of the recovery effort at the World Trade Center. At 10:29 a.m., the time of day that Nina surely died, I stood with thousands of people and observed two minutes of silence to remember those who had been lost. I thought of Nina.
The message of that moment was that it was time to move on. Recovery became reconstruction. Death became rebirth. A void in the skyline became a hole to be filled.
So maybe it's fitting that this weekend, just after marking the end of before and the beginning of now, new people moved into Nina's apartment. Maybe it's fitting that they have a dog, even if it's not a small yappy dog like Mir Mir. After all, it's time to move on. Nina's apartment became just another empty room, to be filled with the stuff of life.
In time, we will get to know Judd and Allison and Tyler, and we may even get to like them. It will be a slow process and it will be tinged with some sadness, but it will happen.
I love you.
Daddy.
Dear Sam:
You got new neighbors, and we met them for the first time today. It got me thinking, maybe this is a good time to write to you and begin to tell you the story of our lives.
Your new neighbors' names are Judd and Allison. They have a dog, named Tyler. I am sure they're good people -- they look to be young, and just starting out, sharing a small studio apartment. But as nice as I'm sure they'll turn out to be, I don't like them because they shouldn't be living there. It's not their apartment.
As you grow up, I imagine you'll hear a lot about "before", and always be cognizant that you live in the "after", even if you don't ever really understand why this is so. Before means before September 11, 2001, and after means the way the world is now. But as simple as that statement is -- after all, September 11, 2001 is just a date -- it's really not that simple.
Someday, you'll ask me and Mommy about what before really means, and we'll look at you and a thousand thoughts will go through our heads as we wonder whether it's time to spoil your innocence, time to place some of the weight of adulthood onto your shoulders. We'll struggle with how to explain terrorism to you, why people hate, and why they hated us so much that awful awful day. We'll wrestle with how to explain just how unreal it all felt -- how we went about our business on that morning just like a thousand mornings before and a thousand mornings after, how on that morning, it was just different, how on that morning people fell out of the sky because there was no place for them to escape to, no place that was safe, no place to wait for the rescue that surely had to be coming.
Someday, I will explain to you how I wandered around downtown, bewildered at what was going on, how I heard a rolling boom as loud as anything I had ever heard before, how that boom reverberated off of the canyon walls, how the crowd of people around me started running anywhere, any way, not knowing what they were running from but running just the same, and how the rolling cloud of dust came rushing out from between the buildings where just a minute ago there had been a street, how I ducked into an open door just in time to avoid being caught in that awful cloud of death, and how in the blink of an eye, a crisp, bright September morning became pitch black, blacker than any night I had ever seen before or hope to see again, and how a man, covered in soot and dust and ash so that he was white from head to toe came in and began to cry right there in the restaurant where I had run to, crying "it's gone, it's just gone" and how a woman was hysterical and we were so discombobulated by it all that the clerk at the restaurant charged me to buy her a drink and I paid him $20 and never got change. I'll tell you how we tried to call someone, anyone on the phones but couldn't get through, and so we tried again and again, just because there was nothing else we could do. Someday, I will explain to you how I walked 6 miles that day, just to get home to Mommy, to hug her forever, and wonder why I had left the house that morning. And someday, I will explain to you about Nina, our neighbor, and her dog Mir Mir, who lived in the apartment next door and were beginning a new life. And I will explain to you about the poster that showed up on the lamppost at the end of that awful week saying "Missing" just like a thousand other posters on a thousand other lampposts around the city, only this one had a picture of Nina on it.
We barely knew Nina, and most of what we knew of her, we knew because of Mir Mir, who was social and gregarious and eager to meet people in the hallway, and who yapped the way that only small yappy dogs can when you even glance at the door to the apartment. When we passed in the hallway, we'd chat about nothing, and when Mir Mir barked too loudly, Nina would apologize for him. I don't even remember her last name.
Nina had a spark. Like us, she had moved into the building when it was still unfinished -- no wallpaper in the hallways, hell, no carpet in the hallways -- and the elevators still encased in plywood sheathing to protect the walls from the dents and dings that inevitably accompany new construction. Nina struck me as someone who was embarking on a grand new adventure. I don't know for real if she was or wasn't, but I do know that she had a new job, a new apartment and looked like she was building a new life.
Nina worked for Aon, an insurance company. I have no idea what she did, but whatever it was, she did it on a high floor in one of the World Trade Center towers. Every day from June to September, Nina rode the 6 train to Brooklyn Bridge, or maybe she transferred to the 4/5 and took it to Fulton Street, and from there she walked the two blocks to the World Trade Center. Maybe she went and got her coffee at the Starbucks at the corner of Church and Dey, or maybe she stopped at the Xando Cosi in 4 WTC for a coffee, or maybe, if she was feeling decadent, she stopped for a Krispy Kreme donut ("Hot Now!") in Building 5. And then she walked across the Plaza to her building, took the escalator down to the lobby, and held her WTC ID card to the turnstile and waited for it to click, and then walked through and took an elevator to her office.
If she was anything like me, she thought it was incredibly cool to work in the World Trade Center, high above the street, looking out at those incredible views that tourists paid $12 to see from the observation deck. And the views were all the cooler because she got to see them everyday, for free. I'm sure she saw the views on that day, right at the moment that "before" became "before" and now became "after". I can't imagine how frightening it must have been for her, or how cruel the irony must have been when she realized that the fact that she had this stunning view would be the very thing that would kill her in the end.
I don't know if Nina made a last phone call to someone she loved, or whether she even could. I don't know exactly when or where or how she died, or how hard she clung to her life. All I know is that Nina didn't come home that surreal afternoon, the way that I did, and didn't scoop Mir Mir up under her arm the way she did every day, and didn't take him to the park to contemplate terrorists and hate and why people hated us so much that day that they had to kill us. All I know is that Nina's apartment sat vacant for nine months, and for nine months, that is the way that it was supposed to be because it was Nina's apartment.
On the day that you turned 6 and one half months old, Sam, there was a ceremony to commemorate the end of the recovery effort at the World Trade Center. At 10:29 a.m., the time of day that Nina surely died, I stood with thousands of people and observed two minutes of silence to remember those who had been lost. I thought of Nina.
The message of that moment was that it was time to move on. Recovery became reconstruction. Death became rebirth. A void in the skyline became a hole to be filled.
So maybe it's fitting that this weekend, just after marking the end of before and the beginning of now, new people moved into Nina's apartment. Maybe it's fitting that they have a dog, even if it's not a small yappy dog like Mir Mir. After all, it's time to move on. Nina's apartment became just another empty room, to be filled with the stuff of life.
In time, we will get to know Judd and Allison and Tyler, and we may even get to like them. It will be a slow process and it will be tinged with some sadness, but it will happen.
I love you.
Daddy.
posted by Daniel at 12:02 AM
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