The image of a bright blue crayola colored sky in the morning. Clear and warm. The new school year and the positive energy that often accompanies such a start. Arriving at my Dad's house before school to take care of his dog, get his coffee ready, and make sure he had breakfast food and clothes ready to go. A normal day. My mom had passed away six months earlier and my father was oxygen dependent, making it hard for him to leave the house, and even walk very far with the aid of clunky O2 tanks. When I arrived, I found two wrapped boxes and a card on the table waiting for me. I couldn't imagine where they'd come from.
My dad was very into what we joked was his "importing" business at that time -- purchasing things off television. Thankfully he wasn't someone who ordered "just to order" but found really neat and often very useful stuff. I still have my screwdriver with multiple attached bits and other gems. I opened the card, planning on opening the presents later when I came back to make my father dinner after work. My father was not an emotional man. He was kind, appreciative of everything, but not effusive with affection. He had written a really kind note inside the card, basically thanking me for being there for him after my mom passed away. It was tear-inducing. The first tears of 9/11.
Once at school, the day went along. I had a group of tiny little innocent sixth graders drawing with crayons and actually singing happy songs when It Happened. My colleague in the room next door called me in to see the television. It was a shock. To then return to the classroom of singing, creating young people, was another. As the morning progressed, the adults aged with worry and fear while the kids were kept oblivious and were their silly, effusive middle school selves. It was a very long day, indeed.
After school I returned to my father's house to find him sitting in his favorite chair watching television. Tears were rolling down his face as he watched the Towers fall, the Pentagon get hit, and the remains of the third plane crash in Pennsylvania repeatedly cover the screen. Not uncontrollable tears, just a tears of sad recognition that the world had changed yet again due to violence. He said "This is worse than Pearl Harbor, Amy."
That comment was a stunner for me as my Dad was a member of The Greatest Generation and a WWII Navy veteran who experienced all sorts of horrors in his childhood and young life. People of that era experienced Real Trouble, not the petty things we experience now that we find burdensome. Back then people survived the Depression, had literally nothing to eat, wear, or even love, and had to completely make a life for themselves from scraps. They are tough people. The words carried extra weight with me. I'd thought the day carried horrors never seen before but if my father did too...well...it had to be bad.
We didn't eat dinner, just sat in shock like the rest of America watching the events unfold. I remember walking the dog and hearing absolutely nothing -- no cars on the street, no planes or copters in the sky. No voices. Nothing. An ominous silence. Then, suddenly, the roar of a military jet from above. After realizing what it was, I felt reassured in a funny way, as if this one little plane would protect us all from the painful unknown of what was to come.
At one point my father insisted I open the gifts he'd carefully wrapped for me. One was a little toy sewing machine he saw on television and "imported," thinking my students could use it. So cute. The other item though, was not an import. My dad had actually left the house and went to Lowe's to buy me a special gift. A Dremel tool. Together we had drilled holes in Scrabble tiles with his Dremel and he wanted me to have my own. For someone who can't breathe well at all, leaving the house, driving, and walking through a huge tool superstore was a crazy and exhausting thing to do. Talk about meaningful. I of course scolded him for risking his health and taking a chance to exert himself like that, and he argued back. A ritual exchange at this point. He took a small oxygen can with him, he said. Huge step for him. I was floored. And touched that he would feel the need to do anything like that. I never liked celebrating my birthday, and knew this one made it completely invalid forever more. No desire to celebrate life on a day with so much death.
The images are haunting to all of us and on this day can not help but surface. Utter sadness. Local people finding out that relatives had been involved and killed. A sense of national pain and insecurity. Fear. Like people of my generation had never known before.
Despite the flaws and tribulations of our government, we have to recognize how fortunate we've been to NOT have another major terrorist event in the US since then. People are doing their jobs in the agencies that monitor potential risks. I get the feeling like we don't know a fraction of what is really going on, and are like children being protected from much of it. That's okay with me. Life can be tough enough without the constant worry of potential terrorist threats. There may come a day when that protection is lifted again, and we see what is truly going on. There may be a day when I cry and say "this is worse than 9/11" to whoever will listen, probably Hapi.
Unfortunately the day will always be my birthday, too. Or fortunately -- if one minimizes or declines to celebrate, does one age? Here's to hoping! Still it is a bittersweet day of memories, media flashbacks, and thoughts about the utter ugliness of the world. At least my father made one very precious memory for me, too. May the souls of all those tragically and violently lost people rest in peace.