I read something years ago that has stuck with me at this time of year – 9/11 belongs to everyone – a day to remember and mourn those lost, but 9/12 — that day belongs to those of us who stayed, those of us who served, those of us who survived.

The sun came up, and we were still standing.

Battered and bruised from the inside out, but still standing.

We own the tomorrow.

I remember thinking, at the time, “well, that’s a nice sentiment, I guess”.

It’s hard, trying to claim a tomorrow when you’re stuck reliving the horrors of yesterday. When the smell of burning popcorn can make you so anxious that you have to leave work. When accidentally getting a little too excited about pouring water on a campfire causes an ash cloud that sends you into full-blown flashbacks and you panic so completely that water literally has to be poured over you until you’re soaking wet, clean, and you come out of it. When a building implosion across town sends you, screaming, underneath your desk….

I don’t think that I’ll ever be ‘dulled’ when it comes to the vividness of what i saw at ground zero, especially on that first day.

If one could ever glimpse hell on earth, it was there in lower Manhattan.

It. Was. Hell. On. Earth.

I don’t even believe in hell anymore – in part, because I’ve already been there. That’s the yesterday those of us who served and survived live with every day.

The first night was the worst. It felt like it would never end.  Like we’d never see the light of day again. Like we were trapped there in that war zone, with the sights, smells, sounds, being seared into our memories over and over again.

But the sun did rise.

The night ended.

And we were still standing.

I want the morning of 9/12 to be seared into my memory as vividly as the day before.

but also, community at it’s truest form….if one could ever glimpse heaven……

I’m sure if I were to open the small tote on the top shelf of my closet labeled “9-11”, the stench would still overwhelm me. To this day, certain smells take me back to ground zero–burning toast, burnt popcorn…strange, how a smell can transport you to a different place and time.

Again this past week, I opened the tote that contains all my stuff from that day — the melted boots from the pile, the clothing stained forever with the ash from the building collapse, the respirator, the leather work gloves with holes worn in them…..it all still smells like ground zero. I still occasionally have nightmares about building seven coming down on us again.

It’s been 14 years, and someone said to me that “it’s time to move on and get over it.” I didn’t handle that comment well. I can’t just “get over it”. My life will never be the same….my lungs have never been the same from what I breathed, I’m still convinced that the lupus and MS were triggered as a result of 9/11,  and every time I look at the small scars all over my left leg, I remember falling to the pavement in the middle of the West Side Highway when the pile settled and shook the street where I was standing.

 

 

Again, this year, I remember my dad, who, when he heard of the attacks, literally dropped what he was doing and drove to NYC to look for me. My dad, who stayed for almost a month working on the pile. My dad, who cut his foot and ended up with a sore that wouldn’t heal…and then a staph infection that eventually killed him. 9/11 is still claiming lives — the lives of rescue workers who went through HELL to bring people out of it.

 

And as I always post on this day…..my journal entry from Sept 11, 2001.

 

 

Shredded ‘Normals’

 

I woke up late, rushed to prepare,

just another normal day.

A tear in my hose,

out of milk,

late for chapel.

Another normal day.

Watching my clock

,listening drowsily,

anxious to attend the first day of class.

Just like any other normal day.

Called back to the chapel before class go to start,

wondering what’s going on…

Did somebody die?Did one of us quit?

And all the other normal thoughts of an unexpected meetingfloat through my mind.

“Loved ones” he said, “something’s happened”

“a plane’s hit a building and we’ve been attacked”

And my normal day,

in my normal life,

in my normal world

ceased to exist.

The day is a blur in my memory,

a whirlwind of events and activities.

Gathered around the television

watching a plane hit

,towers fall

the stronghold of our country engulfed in flames.

The antithisis of a normal day.

Called together once again,we were sent out to serve.

Clad in jeans, strong boots, and tell-tale Salvation Army shirts,

we headed for Manhattan.

what was once a normal route was now a military zone.

With armed guards waving us on and police saluting as the van crawled by.

On the bridge, we glimpsed the skyline,

black and choked with smoke

a dark cloud replacing the pinnacle of the city.

I knew nothing would be normal on that day.

Standing at ground zero,

I stared

open mouthed,

at the burning pile of twisted metal

that once stood so majestically for all to see.

A fluttering peice of paper jolted me back to reality

drifting down from the sky,

a bit of burned newspaper

floated into my hands.

A weather report,

with the 11th date

‘it’s going to be a beautiful day’ it read.

And i thought, despite myself,How ironic.

A normal article,

about a normal subject,

on what began as a normal day

now floated in an eerie psudo-normalness

in a new realm of normalcy.

We worked for hours,

hauling water,

serving food,

offering a shoulder to cry on.

And then we began to head home,

walking slowly,

dragging ourselves down the street

as people lined the highway

holding candles

rasing signs

silently clapping in somber reveranceas we walked past.

They hailed us as heros…

Heros? us?Lord, i do not feel like a hero.

Just a dirty,

dishevelled,

exausted girl

who had done simply what seemed most natural.

there is nothing heroic about us….

it was unsettling,

seeing the men and women

clad in dust masks

who were so thankful

just to see that we were there.

I wanted to disappear,

and couldn’t get back to the van fast enough.

I arrived back at my home,

thankful that everything was just as I left it that morning

normal,

just like always,

and yet somehow,

profoundly different.

In the shower,

i tried to wash away the stench

wash away the ash

wash away the pain.

But as I stood there,

the emotion of the day overtook me,

and I sat sobbing on the floor of the shower

and i realized that my neatly packaged,

normal life

was over

and that i would

take nothing for granted,

call nothing ‘normal’again.