I will never forget.
Since joining Facebook in 2008, there are several years I posted these words (or some quite similar) as my status on September 11th. I will never forget.
For most of those years, when I wrote them, my mindset added a hostile connotation to the phrase. I will never forget. I was angry that there were people in the world who carried such hatred in their hearts that they would choose to display it in a way that hurt so many. But, I realize we have enough animosity in our world, and I don’t want to increase the aggregate. So, I want to consciously change that way of thinking, and create a more humane thought process for myself when I read or say those words.
Like every conscious adult who was alive at the time, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when it happened. I was in Dana Point, California, working with a group of Regional Managers during my stint as VP of the staff and product training arm of HOSTS Learning (Help One Student to Succeed). It was only 5:30 AM on the west coast, but I was already out of bed. A morning person I am not, but for some reason I was up. As a result, I had time on my hands before our meetings were scheduled to start later that morning. I picked up the remote and turned on the TV to catch the news. In the middle of mundane programming, breaking news clips began. Banal morning news chatter ended, and instead the broadcast personalities were trying to make sense of the live video we were all watching that showed smoke billowing from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Fifteen minutes later, I watched in horror as I witnessed the second plane fly into the South Tower in real time. Up to that point, newscasters had been relating information about the horrible accident that had occurred when the first plane hit. After the second one hit, all illusions were shattered and the narrative changed to terrorist attacks and hijacked flights. I remember the feel of the cushion and the sound of the ceiling fan, as I stared at the screen and tried to comprehend what was happening.
I’m not alone, I know. Reactions all over the world were mirroring mine. I dressed in a fog, picked up my bags, and headed for the conference room in the hotel we were using as a home base that week. I wondered how I was going to find the stamina to present to the group while the world was falling apart. There were a few friends already there when I arrived, and we all just looked at each other. No one said a word. Gathering closely together, we didn’t want to do anything other than watch the events unfold on the TV in the corner of the room. But business is business, and the company had invested a lot to pull this group together from all over the country. We were there, and needed to make use of the time we had, so the televised lifeline to the rest of the country was switched off until lunch. We worked to move forward as professionals, as if life hadn’t changed. I have no idea what actually occurred during that meeting. Who spoke, what product plans were made that day, or what sales strategies might have been launched have left my consciousness. Nothing seemed to matter except our need to know what was happening, and—fearfully—what might be next.
When lunch arrived, the food was ignored. We scattered to connect with those we loved. Phone lines were jammed, networks were unavailable, and finding out where everyone was, HOW everyone was – wasn’t easy. We were as far west as we could be – virtually as far from the tragedy as we could contiguously be, but we felt the pain of the loss, the devastation, the fear, and the senselessness.
When we returned to the room, the television was back on, and we watched the clips play again and again. One tower collapsed and then the other. We saw paper flying through the air as if there was some kind of tragic ticker tape parade. People stumbled down the street, covered in ash. I wanted to reach out and help them. I wanted to wipe the dust out of their blinking eyes, and pour water over the heads of those who were dazed and coughing. The reports coming out of Manhattan were haunting and hopeless. All I could do was sit there thinking, “Oh, my God.” I wanted to stop watching, but couldn’t.
As the day progressed, it was clear that continuing the meetings was pointless, and that getting home had to be everyone’s focus. We had employees from all over the country with us. The stories of home-going over the next few days are part of what I now want to “Never forget.” We (and countless others across the nation) were far from our home bases and families. Those of us who worked out of the Corporate offices in Vancouver, WA were more than a thousand miles from home, but we were the lucky ones. Others in the group had three times as far to travel. The stories of how each displaced team member returned to his or her own respective nest – without the ability to fly (or even rent a car since they had all immediately been snapped up) mirrored tales from all over the country. They are filled with determination, frustration, inspiration, and emotion as we worked our way to where we most wanted to be. Home.
The three of us who lived in Vancouver, WA left for home on Thursday, two days after the World Trade Center’s twin towers collapsed. Sheila Tretter, our COO had a rental car and she, Lani Gordon, our VP of Product Development, and I drove the 19 hours from southern Cali to Vancouver. We had planned to stop for the night along the way, but when it came time to decide where, we all just wanted to keep going. We just wanted to get home. We stopped at numerous places looking for a car charger for Sheila’s phone, and to buy flags we could fly, as we had seen on many cars. We finally found a charger for Sheila, but – not surprisingly – there were no flags to be found. They had already been purchased by the hundreds of cars we had passed who were our patriotic inspiration. We improvised and bought red, white, and blue curling ribbon, unrolled all six spools, chopped them into roughly equal lengths, and tied them together as one large bunch. Attached to the back bumper, we continued our way up I-5 toward home, proclaiming our allegiance and support via the ribbons that streamed from our back bumper.
The three of us took turns driving throughout the day. As the sun went down, and my night owl body clock took over, I drove the hours after dark while Sheila and Lani slept fitfully. At one point, I listened to a radio interview with Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm that occupied the five highest floors of the North Tower. He, himself, had fortuitously chosen to take his son to his first day of kindergarten before heading to the WTC, but he lost his brother and 658 colleagues in the disaster. His tears, his anguish, his grief brought everything into focus for me. “We lost them all,” he repeated over and over. The impact of what had happened struck me on a visceral level for the first time. I gripped the steering wheel as tears streamed down my own face.
It was an incredibly sad time, and yet – in the midst of all the tragedy and tears, somehow I felt we were all united. For a brief moment we all thought of and looked out for others, not just for ourselves. Traffic up and down the I-5 corridor from southern California to Washington was courteous, as were all the people we encountered along the way. Motorists waved at us, acknowledging our makeshift ribbon flag and gave us a thumbs-up for our effort. As we pulled into the rental car return lot at Portland International Airport, the charge for the entire rental was forgiven. Even corporate America felt the spirit during those days. John picked us up at the airport, and I fell into his arms, never wanting to be anywhere else again, ever in my life.
That weekend was quiet for us, as we continued to process all that had happened. I recall sitting on our deck, happy to be home, scanning cloudless skies, as we both realized there were no sounds of jet engines and no contrails marring the blue expanse. We were new to our neighborhood, having moved in the previous June, so didn’t know many people. We discovered we weren’t the only ones when a neighbor up the street sent around a flyer inviting any and all to come visit. She decided it was time to get to know the people around her, so she baked cookies and welcomed us all into her home, in an effort to connect. During the next few days, John and I both spent hours on the phone, talking to our son and daughter, one living in Arizona, one away at college, just needing to hear their voices. We talked endlessly to my mom, all our siblings, and to friends we hadn’t called in far too long. We needed to ground ourselves and be grateful for the here and now – and for the “us-ness” of life.
The term Nine-Eleven still slams me back into that Dana Point hotel room, remembering the things I saw, heard, and felt that day. The trauma is what comes to mind first—and it is possible that for me, that will not change. But I also want to remember the humanity that was offered to strangers in the days that followed, the sense of national connectedness I felt, how kind people were, and how patient we were with each other. Even drivers yielded differently than before, and smiled through their windshields as they made eye contact with other drivers at a stop. Somehow, in the midst of this horrific event, most of us realized – however briefly – what was important and what was not.
These are the thoughts I want to unearth when I think of September 11, 2001. I want to remind myself, frequently, of what is most essential in my life. I want to recognize how small kindnesses add up to be huge, especially when things have gone wrong. I want to think about how good it feels to be where I belong – how wonderful home is. And I hope that every time I think about the tragedy and fear of that day, I will also consciously, resolutely, and persistently remind myself of the precious moments I experienced in the days and weeks that followed. This – this goodness – is what I hope I will never forget.
