Some columns are easy to write. This one isn’t. As we commemorate the five-year anniversary of the worst terror attack on our soil, much is being said and done in remembrance of those who died — those who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and those who knowingly put their lives on the line to save as many as they could. I am adding my small voice to the voices of others in remembrance of that day.
The other day I saw a fellow driving around in his car with several American flags flying from plastic poles affixed to the windows. I remembered the outpouring of patriotism that was shown shortly after the terror attacks of September 11, and it wasn’t until I saw this display of flags that I realized that it was once again an unusual sight, that our burst of flag-flying has subsided.
It is fitting, then, that we should take some time once again to reflect on these events, to keep from lapsing into forgetfulness and apathy. When told we can’t bring shampoo on an airplane, we need to remember where that small inconvenience fits in the overall scheme of things.
We all remember where we were and how we found out about the events of September 11. Here in Hawaii, we were still asleep. My husband always set the clock radio to come on to a local station with Japanese music. It was always so annoying that it got him out of bed so he could rouse our two boys for early morning seminary, a fact of life during the high school years for those of us outside of Utah and Idaho.
That day, however, he was awakened by a newscast giving details of planes flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. He immediately ran to the living room and turned on the television. Running back into the bedroom, he jarred me awake, shouting, “Get up! We’re being attacked!”
Waking up is usually a gradual process for me. Still groggy, I tried to process what he was saying. “We’re being attacked!” Unclear who the “we” was, my first thought was that I’d better get some clothes on. Not sure whether he meant our home and our family, our state, or our country, I was going to be dressed just to be on the safe side. Pulling on the nearest outfit, I joined him in the living room, speechless at what we were witnessing on the television screen.
I sat on the living room sofa unable to move, trying to absorb the horror of it all. Everyone has a similar story of how they came to hear the news, and it will be added to their other “Where were you when...?” recollections. Everyone was affected by these events, our sense of security never to be the same again.
Seeing replay after replay of the towers falling and the Pentagon burning brought to mind the unspeakable suffering and deaths of so many people, people who had families who loved them. The tears came as I tried to imagine the sum total of physical and emotional suffering caused by these attacks.
Soon my husband called me into the bedroom. I thought at first that it was only to get me away from the television coverage for a few minutes. He hesitated and spoke softly. “You know they’re going to call me.”
We had discussed before we were married, less than a year earlier, what it meant for him to be a Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Specialist. He had detailed for me some of the disasters to which he had been sent in that capacity — floods, plane crashes, fires. I had assured him of my willingness to be supportive and of my ability to hold down the fort on short notice. I think I had also signed on to throw together a suitcase packed with the necessities, something that is now always half-ready, waiting for me to throw in a toothbrush and some toenail clippers and send him on his way. (I think that duty was contained in the fine print.)
We have both been widowed, each sealed in the temple to our previous spouse. I have joked with him as he leaves, “Be careful, but either way, there’s a woman waiting for you.” We had not even reached our first anniversary when he was called to duty after the events of September 11, 2001. That quip wasn’t part of my repertoire when I took him to the airport as soon as planes were allowed to fly.
His first assignment was in Texas, organizing a hotline for United and American Airline employees who had been traumatized by the events of that fateful day. Without returning home, he was sent to New York City where he counseled with the families of the most seriously injured survivors in the burn unit of the New York Presbyterian Hospital. Back at home my worry and energy was poured into painting the office space we were renovating at the time.
We talked as often as we could. Thom recounted to me how the families quickly became part of each others’ support system, and how their numbers dwindled as another victim succumbed to their injuries. He shared with me a unique perspective of some families when their loved ones died, who considered themselves the lucky ones because they had a body to bury.
Lauren Manning was among those in the burn unit. Her story is told this month in Reader’s Digest. Having survived her horrendous injuries, including burns over 80% of her body, she then endured twelve surgical procedures in the first year alone, with at least that many more to follow. She now states, “I don’t have bad days.” Translation: “I have stared death in the face. I chose to live. I have a husband who loves me and a child that I love dearly. Every day that I am alive and with them is a good day.”
Thom returned home. It is not unusual for him not to speak to me of details of his counseling because of the confidentiality of his clients. He returned home from New York City with a different kind of silence. It wasn’t a “will not talk,” but a “cannot talk.”
Every once in a while a letter came from the Red Cross offering debriefing and counseling to those who had worked at Ground Zero. It would list off the symptoms they might be experiencing — difficulty sleeping, inability to concentrate, depression. I would put those letters under his nose, just in case my resident counselor might read them and see himself.
Perhaps he never sought counseling himself because he felt the problems he experienced were dwarfed by what he had seen. Perhaps he didn’t sign up because he knew all the questions he would be asked. It is a hard thing to ask a counselor to sit on the other side of the desk. I imagine it is also a hard thing to be a counselor and to have another counselor sit on the other side of the desk, evaluating your skills and training rather than dealing with his or her problems. In the absence of a professional, I did my best to be his counselor, listening as he began to be able to share bits and pieces of his experiences at the hospital.
Eventually he began to talk of what it was like to witness Ground Zero, something that simply could not be conveyed adequately in pictures. It wasn’t the mind pictures that stayed with him the most. It was the smells. I had never heard before of an “olfactory hallucination,” being able to smell something from the past when there is nothing there to impart the smell. Even if I had, I’m sure that getting a whiff of an old boyfriend’s cologne and having a flashback to the prom is not quite the same.
Since that time, his research focus has shifted and as a sociologist he now studies radical Islam and terrorism. I just rearranged several shelves of books in preparation for new research he will do as he begins a sabbatical year from the university where he teaches. He says he’s trying to apply the skills he developed for investigating troubled families to understand our troubled world. I think he’s trying to make sense of what he experienced in the aftermath of one of our nation’s most traumatic days.
In two days, I will drive him to the airport for his second research trip to Israel this year, this time to attend a conference on global terrorism. It is not always easy for me, having already lost a husband, to send him off to places where there is known danger and unrest. In discussing this recent trip I told him of my fears. He informed me that the biggest threat to his life is the bookcase in our bedroom by his side of the bed that would fall on him if we had even a moderate earthquake.
Armed with that information, I moved the bookcase to another room, but I won’t veto this trip, although a big part of me would like to, because I can’t stop him from adding his small part to the war against terror. I believe strongly in the saying that “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” I’m grateful to be married to a good man who is doing something. And besides, either way, he’s got a good woman waiting for him.