I woke up this morning around 5 a.m. to the surprisingly loud sound of our dog’s tail thumping against the comforter. To her delight, my husband had just come into our bedroom to get ready for work after sleeping in the guest room last night.
This is our normal routine to ensure he gets adequate rest the night before he flies, especially when he has early show times. Otherwise, the quality of his sleep (and flying) is directly dependent on the quality of my own sleep or our daughter’s or the dog’s or the cat’s nighttime shenanigans. And none of us have that great of a track record.
It would make more sense for me to sleep in the upstairs guest room, so he doesn’t wake me in the morning while getting ready, but I prefer to stay downstairs in our bed. For one, our daughter’s room is also downstairs, so it’s easier to handle the middle-of-the-night wake ups. And two, I like to be awake when he leaves, no matter the hour. I need the face-to-face, I love you; be safe, don’t forget your sunglasses interaction before each trip.
This morning, admittedly, I wasn’t fully awake for this ritual. He came in, heard our daughter’s lullaby music on the baby monitor – a sure sign she’s been awake within the last hour – and asked if we had a bad night.
“Not that bad…just a few times…dreams, I think,” I mumbled as I flipped over and settled further into the covers, intent on falling back asleep.
He quietly walked into the bathroom, softly closing the narrow double doors that I wish were a single normal-sized door (thanks 90s home design), and promptly coughed up a lung while brushing his teeth. Real quiet-like.
It wasn’t until I was drinking my coffee at the breakfast table while my toddler scarfed down a peach a few hours later that I remembered today was Sept. 11. We’d discussed it only briefly last night:
“You know where your flag pin is?”
“Yes, I’m wearing the full blazer tomorrow.”
Crap. I was supposed to dry clean that. He hates that blazer. They aren’t required to wear them until Oct. 1 – the fact that I know this should tell you how much he dislikes wearing it – but today he’ll wear it proudly. Solemnly.
My husband is a pilot for one of the four major commercial airlines. He absolutely loves his job, and he’s arguably a very good pilot. However, he’s the first to tell you it’s just a job like anyone else’s – he pushes buttons and stares out the window all day.
Still, today it feels a little more than that, at least to me. And, as he’ll take extra care with his uniform and extra care interacting with passengers and colleagues, I think it’s more for him, too.
***
23 years ago, I was in the 7th grade and what started out as a normal morning, quickly dissolved into a very confusing September day.
Our school didn’t bring us all to a central location to explain something terrible had happened, nor did they bring in a TV to let us watch history unfold in front of our eyes. Instead, a member of administration came to each classroom, asked the teacher to step into the hall, whispered something to them, and sent them back in with no further explanation to us.
I think I heard something about an “explosion” at lunch from a kid in another class whose teacher had told them what happened. On the walk back to our classroom, I tried to get more information from our teacher who was unusually withdrawn. I told her I remembered being a little kid and watching footage of the Oklahoma City bombing on TV – another horrific tragedy that formed an early, impactful memory.
My teacher responded, “this is a bit bigger than that, I’m afraid.”
Both then and now, her tone felt unnecessarily harsh. This response also confused me. What was bigger than the Oklahoma City Bombing? How could it possibly be worse than the images of limp babies carried out by ashen firefighters that have never left my head?
My teacher’s reaction also left me feeling a bit embarrassed, as I hadn’t meant to compare the events exactly – I suppose I was just trying to link this confusing event I didn’t really have many details about with something I thought I had a pretty good idea about.
Looking back on this now, I have more grace for that teacher (who was a very good teacher I want to point out), but also still a lot of empathy for the child version of me who desperately wanted to know what was going on and to make sense of this thing that everyone was talking, or not talking about.
***
As I get older and my memories become more selective, there’s not much more of that day that stands out. (Although, I do remember thinking it odd my brother was sent home from his job at the movie theater, as the movies were open even on Christmas.)
If anything, the act of commemorating the event each year has created its own canon of memories, stories, thoughts, and feelings I wrestle with, reexamine, and add to each year.
On the top of this list is the poignant essay, “Leap,” by the late Brian Doyle. (It’s worth the three minutes it’ll take to listen to it being read by Doyle, himself.) I try to read or listen to this essay each year. It’s both awful and beautiful, tragic yet hopeful.
But why?
Honestly, I’m not sure I know.
***
Five years ago, just days after getting engaged to my airline pilot boyfriend, I wrote a short blog titled, “Sept. 11 Reflection – Remembering to Remember” in which I tried to articulate why I think it’s important to mark the anniversary each year.
I reread the post this morning (and fixed a few typos), and everything I wrote then still holds true for me now.
In fact, today’s anniversary feels even heavier on my heart than it did then – maybe because as we get further from the event, it’s harder to remember and so easy to forget. Or maybe it’s because I’m a wife and a mother now, and I have a richer understanding of the true depths of love.
I understand now just how important a single person can be to so many. I think about how much I love my husband, how much my daughter loves my husband…his parents, his brother and his sister, my brother and sister, my parents…tip of the iceberg with this guy, honestly.
So now, when I watch footage of the planes entering the towers with only debris and fireballs coming out the other side…when I watch the towers crumble like they’re only made of my daughter’s blocks…it’s impossible to think those structures could have had anyone inside the way they fell…but thousands of souls?
When I watch the footage of that day now, I don’t just think about the ones who perished; I also think about their family, friends, and the worlds they left behind.
***
Aside from Brian Doyle’s, “Leap,” there’s one other story I always think about on the anniversary on 9/11. While I am pretty sure I heard this while watching an interview of a writer or maybe an actress, I cannot remember the exact source of this story. (If this rings a bell for anyone, please let me know so I can include it here.)
In any case, the woman sharing the memory said she lived in New York at time and the days following the attacks were eerily quiet. Planes were grounded until Sept. 13, and everyone was home, so the streets were empty. In pre-pandemic times, this was hard to imagine.
She was in her home on Sept. 12 or maybe the 13th, and all of a sudden heard noise coming from the street. When she ran outside, she saw a sanitation worker collecting trash. Upon seeing her, and perhaps registering her alarm, he told her, “We’re going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
She said it brought her immense comfort – not just his words but seeing something so normal amid what felt like the end of the world.
For some reason, this story chokes me up every time I think about it. For one, it’s a reminder that in the face of any tragedy – personal or shared – life goes on. Whether we want it to or not, the sun continues to rise. And although that can be painful in the face of grief, it is also immensely hopeful.
This example of human connection between strangers is also incredibly moving to me. It’s a less tragic image of the “couple holding hands” from Doyle’s essay mentioned above. It reminds me that although we live in a culture acutely focused on individualism and putting oneself before all others, we still belong to a larger community.
There is great power in small acts of kindness and genuine words of encouragement – something I’ve been focusing on a lot the last few years.
There are a million horrible things going on in our world today, and as someone who truly wants to help and has a “doer” personality, I feel very overwhelmed by all the suffering in the world and what “to do” about it. I want to make a positive impact on the world, but also, I really need to get the dishes and laundry done. And, also, I’m so tired.
Know what I mean?
But this morning, my husband left at 5:30am, dressed in his blazer with a small American flag pin on his lapel. Although I’d fallen back asleep, he woke me up right before he left as is his promise, and I told him I loved him and not to forget his sunglasses, to which he responded, “Where are my sunglasses?”
“I have no idea. But don’t forget them.”
He takes extra care on this day, and he always prefers to fly rather than sit at home on the anniversary. As if to say, we’re still here, still showing up.
It’s resiliency. Maybe a little defiance. Definitely hope.
Today after I picked up my daughter from daycare, he called to check in. He was at DFW on a long layover, two of the day’s three flights completed. We talked about each of our days, my daughter’s slightly confused, but overly enthusiastic “dadas” on repeat in the background.
I asked him why he likes to fly today of all days – if it was about resiliency and defiance like I’d suspected.
“Yeah, that’s a part of it, but it’s also so I don’t forget. It’s easy just to let the day pass without realizing it, and It’s important to me to remember it.”
***
We moved to the suburbs of Dallas a few months ago, and we have a great view from our backyard of commercial jets approaching DFW. When my husband’s away, my daughter and I try to “find daddy’s plane” and when my husband is home, we sit out back after our daughter is in bed and he uses an app to tell me where each plane is coming from or going.
It’s one of my favorite things about our new house.
Still, on days when the sky is bright blue and there’s not a cloud in sight, I think about another perfect day on the other side of the country, 23 years ago.
It was a perfect day before that first plane hit. That’s what so many eyewitnesses say about that morning.
It was perfect day for flying.
***
There are two lapel pins my husband wears every September. One says we remember, and the other says, we shall never forget.
And so, I guess that’s where I land, even if I can’t fully articulate all that I feel about this day.
I’ll remember the crews and passengers from AA11, UA175, AA77, and UA93. I’ll remember those working at the Pentagon, those working in the south tower, the north tower, and the surrounding buildings. I’ll remember the extraordinarily brave men and women who took down Flight 93, and of course, all the first responders who ran into buildings while others tried to get out. And I shall never forget the countless families, friends, and loved ones they all left behind.
***
Life is precious and delicate. It’s hard, but beautiful. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow, so be kind and loving and intentional today.
“Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here.” – from “Leap” by Brian Doyle
