Tuesday, September 11, 2001 (as written on September 11, 2011)
Just an ordinary weekday morning in Princeton, albeit a beautifully clear and sparkling one in the aftermath of an oppressively hot and humid Monday. The older two kids were at school, the fourth day of the school year in their new town in which we had been living barely two months. We were back in the USA after spending the previous five years living abroad. Hayley, our four year old, was excited to be starting pre-school the next day: Her first day of school, ever.
I was in the kitchen looking through an enormous stack of mail and paperwork for a letter that the elementary school nurse had sent home regarding Collin’s need for a TB test. He was scheduled to have one at our new pediatrician’s office that afternoon when his older sister had her physical, and I could not find the form for the life of me. I had given up looking, assuming that it had been thrown out by accident, and had called the school nurse in order to have a another copy sent home. The nurse was absent that day, I was told by the office secretary, but I could probably just have the doctor’s office complete their own form stating that my son had in fact had the required medical test. I had just hung up the phone with the school when Gavin came into the kitchen and said, “You’ve got to look at this.”
We went upstairs to the office that Gavin had carved out for himself in the attic, and I saw the television image: the tower with the airplane sticking out of it. As I was looking at it wondering, “how are they going to fix this?”, the second plane hit. Gavin asked me what I was thinking, and I clearly remember saying, “National security.”
No one knew what the hell was going on. We spent the next hours glued to the television, while simultaneously carrying-out the mundane tasks of daily existence. The little ones ate and took naps and played, blissfully ignorant of the horror. When Flight 93 went down in western Pennsylvania, I called my parents in Pittsburgh. I was so distraught that my dad must have thought that something had happened to one of us, asking me tenderly, “what’s the matter, dear?”
Time passed, but almost seemed to stand still that morning. A PTO volunteer called at one point to inform parents that the schools would remain open, and that children should remain at school until the normal dismissal time. She also asked that someone be home to either collect from school or meet the children when they got off the school bus. Later, I learned that this call was meant to ascertain if a parent was going to be home, that is, not in New York. The television remained on. We watched in disbelief as first one tower went down, then the second.
The school day was coming to a close. Gavin walked down to Johnson Park to get Collin, and I remained home with Hayley and Sean. What do you say to a seven-year-old about something that you can’t even get your own head around? A short while later, Megan came home from the middle school, her attitude callous, and almost defiant, too wrapped up in adolescent uncertainties to feel compassion and empathy, or even fear.
Since I had not yet reclaimed my driving privileges (license had expired while abroad, and I, at age 41, was waiting, like a seventeen-year-old, to take the road test a few weeks later), we all six piled into the car and headed to the pediatrician’s office. Driving down Rte 206, everything seemed normal, but yet, nothing was normal. The township offices had the flags flying at half-staff, as they would remain for weeks to come. We arrived at the doctor’s, a place where none of us had ever been (except I, once as child when my best friend came to receive a scheduled “allergy shot.”). The nurses had a small television set and a radio playing behind the reception desk, yet everything proceeded as it normally would. No one said anything about what was going on. Not a word. We filled out forms. We met the doctor. We talked about height and weight. Collin had the TB test, Megan had a vaccine, and we went home.
For the next two weeks, not a day passed that I did not at some point spontaneously break out in tears. Grief, fear, and rage, combined with a feeling of being totally disconnected, persisted as we continued to live our lives, day by day, wondering when the other shoe would drop.
With hope in my heart that there someday might be peace in this world,
