Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Anger and Sadness from a Survivor's Wife As 9/11 Anniversary Approaches

It felt today as if someone had taken a load of bricks and thrown them onto my chest. Tomorrow marks the 12th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. My husband, who walked out of Tower One 11 minutes before it fell, still is with me. He's alive to help me guide our two boys to adulthood, to make awesome chicken wings, and to coach middle school basketball. So why did I cry - no why did I sob - so many tears today?

I'd like to say it is for the families of those who lost loved ones. I'd like to say it's for the 25 friends and colleagues who died. But today, for me, is not about other people. It's about my family, a family who survived trauma. Through the years I have learned that mourning comes in waves and finds patterns in my heart. Always, on Sept. 11, I mourn the souls who perished, I pray for them and I pray for the loved ones they left behind.

But on September 10, I relive the shock of the attack, the way that day ripped though our family's lives and shook us to our cores, the way it tore out our little ones' innocence, and turned a trusting little boy's first days of kindergarten into whirlpool of anger and sadness and confusion. I remember how the attacks destroyed his fifth birthday, which was the very next day and has made subsequent birthdays so bittersweet. He just could not understand why anyone would try to kill his kind daddy. Neither could his parents.

You see, I remember today what life was like before the attack. Those memories sear me.

That boy is a young man now, a happy high school senior busy with AP classes, college visits and cyclocross races. Yet, this particular anniversary, this particular day before, I felt the weight the trauma has held on the trajectory of his life.

Many people have trouble understanding the trauma of enduring the attacks, and then the trauma of surviving them.

A Wall Street Journal reporter's called our home on Sept. 13. His call began with a cheery "Congratulations!" to me on Greg's survival and a comment that he knew Greg. (He probably did, but he was no friend). The reporter sounded like he were smiling, as if he thought we were popping champagne when in fact I was trying to figure out how to maintain calm routines for our two sons while my husband worked 18 hour days in Jersey City. Another call that same day came from a former newspaper colleague, a woman my husband had mentored, who now worked at the Washington Post. She drew me in with assurances she was calling "as a friend only," and then, once I felt relaxed, tried to grill me about what happened.

A neighbor down the street was puzzled that week about why we weren't celebrating my husband's return home; why was I so stressed when we had so much to be thankful for?

That Sunday at church a woman in front of me shushed me at Mass when I could not stop my quiet sobs when singing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," with my five and not-quite-two-year old sitting beside me.   remember feeling sad that Mass had not provided me with the sanctuary I had sought.

I still can't stand it when I tell someone my husband is a World Trade survivor and they just go on about say how they had been in Lower Manhattan three weeks before or how they had watched the whole thing on TV, or how their cousin had survived too; he had watched the attacks from his apartment window in Brooklyn. Seriously?

Yes, we are all witnesses to history, and we all survived that day. But nothing compares to the experience of walking down 68 flights of stairs into an uncertain future.

Every day since Sept. 11 I have considered how blessed - how undeservedly lucky - we are that Greg survived, that I get to be married to him still and that, since then, he has witnessed since so much beauty unfolding.

But today, I feel sad and angry that our little world, and "Daddy work" was shattered. I thank God we have been given so much time for prayer and therapy and healing. I thank God we have this new life. Even if the wider world forgets and neighbors stay clueless and journalists see us as nothing more than a quick quote on deadline, the four of us forever will understand our hard, lonely and beautiful journey.

11 comments:

  1. " a woman in front of me shushed me at Mass when I could not stop my quiet sobs when singing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," - how stupid and ignorant was that woman!

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    1. I don't know Steve. I remember thinking at the time that she must be a very unhappy person and that whatever happened in her life had had led her to a moment where it seemed reasonable to her to behave that way. I tried to calmly explain to her that my husband was in the attacks and was working and that why I was crying. I do remember wondering why there was no solace in that church that day for me but later the celebrant told me he saw my gesture and how I had responded and thought I had done the right thing.

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  2. Thinking about you and all those we know who were deeply impacted that day. Mostly, thinking about you, and all the pain of surviving again (this was the second time), and the Russin family who lost Steve that day at Cantor Fitzgerald and then Andrea had her twin girls that week. We know too many others lost, and too many other survival stories (thankfully not all quite as scary as yours, but truthfully, they were all scary), but your family's and the Russin's haunt me every year. My thoughts and prayers, as ever, are with your family on this day.

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    1. Michelle: We are blessed to count you among our friends.

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  3. Beautiful, thoughtful, emotion-filled without relying on emotion. Thank you for this.

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    1. You're welcome, Mr. Editor Man. I appreciate your stopping by and commenting!

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  4. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I read you faithfully but have discovered I cannot post comments under an anonymous profile on my iPad. I've tried several times to comment on your posts to let you know I'm still reading and being blessed by them! I think of you and your family every year on this day and remember you in my prayers.

    My son's best friend is a "Jersey boy" whose birthday is today. He turned 13 in 2001.

    Blessings to you,

    Sandy Croslow

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    1. Sandy: It is good to hear from you. Yeah, those mixing of happy days like birthdays and wedding anniversaries with this day on the calendar can really stink. Then, again, it's a reminder that our lives are beautiful, no matter the losses we face.

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  5. Michele T: please know if you are having trouble posting with your name that you should just add our name at your comments end.

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  6. Wow, what a moving post! Very well written, and it will remind me to always be compassionate and considerate of others. :)

    http://travelinghomeamdg.blogspot.com/

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