We had become parents just over a year ago. We celebrated Jackie’s first birthday on August 21, 2001. John worked from home, when he wasn’t traveling, and I was thinking about going back to work part-time, because being home all day with a baby was driving me crazy. At least I had a babysitter, Mrs. G, for some relief. I just wasn’t cut out for this stay-at-home-mom stuff. It took me a while to figure out that I had post-partum depression, but what I did know was that I needed some balance in my life.
John and I prided ourselves on not watching much television
in those days. We only had a little 13-inch screen TV that we kept on the top
shelf of a blue painted jelly cupboard in our living room, the door to which
was usually closed, prompting guests to ask, “Where’s your TV?”
On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, I was sitting on
the living room floor and playing with Jackie, who was still a baby, even
though she was walking proficiently, having taken her first steps at only
eight-and-a-half-months old. As John was preparing to start his work day in the
attic office, the cordless phone on the kitchen wall rang unexpectedly, and he
answered it. “Hello?” He listened, his face turning grave as he looked at me. He
said, “It’s my dad. Turn on the TV.”
Concerned, I opened the door to our quaint wooden cupboard
and turned on the TV. We were greeted by an awful sight: Both of the World
Trade Center towers with black smoke billowing horrifically from their top
floors. “Two planes hit the World Trade Center,” John conveyed. “My dad thinks
it was that bin Laden.” What? Who? At a time when most Americans had never
heard of Osama bin Laden, John’s dad, a retired Air Force officer and a spy
during the Cold War, knew all about him. I was incredulous and confused. It
couldn’t be an act of terrorism. But then again, it would be impossible for two
pilots to fly accidentally into each of the Twin Towers.
I covered my face with my hands as I thought about how many
people were likely in that building at 9:00 on a Tuesday morning. I hadn’t even
thought about little Jackie standing near me, but she was looking at me, and clearly
thought I was playing peek-a-boo. She removed my hands from my face and
playfully said, “Boo!” Oh no, I thought, my hands are not on my face because
I’m playing. I can’t play right now. This is terribly tragic. But Jackie was
too young to understand, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell her what was
going on. I barely understood it myself. All I knew was that people were dying
before my eyes. So, I half-heartedly played peek-a-boo as I stole glances at
the TV with dread.
The 9/11 Generation
In fact, I never told Jackie about what happened on that
bright, “severe clear” September morning. As she was growing up, I deftly
avoided the subject entirely. I figured that either I would explain it to her
when she was older, or she would learn about it in school, at an age that
educators thought it would be appropriate to talk to children about terrorism
and evil. Ultimately, I guess I couldn’t imagine any time that I would want to
tell my daughter about such things because over the years, it never felt like a
good time to tell her that horrible story. I’m not someone who generally shies
away from difficult subjects, but in this case, I became rather skilled at it.
She eventually learned about it, presumably at school. As an adult, she told me
that there was never a time that she didn’t know about September 11; it was
always part of her consciousness.
Debbie in DC
The images on the TV became more and more disturbing, as
news came that the Pentagon had also been hit by a hijacked passenger jet. I
called my college friend Debbie, who worked for the Department of Defense but
had recently moved her office from the Pentagon. To my great relief, she
answered her cell phone. Her office (in Federal Office Building 2) was adjacent
to the Pentagon (Federal Office Building 1), and she and the thousands of
others in the building had been evacuated. “We were told to disperse from the
parking lot we were standing in, so we walked along the gridlocked highway, and
now I’m sitting in a Korean restaurant with no TV,” she told me. “Could you
call my mom and tell her that I’m ok? We don’t have good reception here. I’m
surprised you got through.” I was glad to have something helpful to do. Debbie
had been my friend for over 20 years, and I had her childhood home phone number
memorized. I still do. 609-895-1135.
Like many Americans, I was looking for someplace to put the blame. Debbie was a lifelong Republican, and we had developed an understanding that we would never discuss politics. However, I was still stinging from Al Gore’s horrific general election loss to George W. Bush the previous November. “I don’t think this would have happened if Gore was in office,” I said to Debbie resentfully. “Are you kidding me?!” she shot back. “This has been brewing since Clinton was in office! If anything, it’s Clinton’s fault! He completely missed the opportunity to prevent this!” Never mind that Bush was in office for nearly eight months already and had been unable to prevent it. To this day, we still don’t discuss politics. We’ll never agree.
Concern from France
The phone rang again, and it was my friend Cathy calling
from the South of France. “We see what is happening in New York. Are you ok?” she
asked. Cathy knew that, before Jackie was born, we lived and worked in New York
City. I told her we were all safe in Princeton, and she was audibly relieved.
The whole world was watching what was happening here. I was touched by her
concern.
The phone rang a third time, and it was Mrs. G. She asked if
it was ok if she didn’t come that morning to babysit Jackie. She didn’t feel
safe going out. I told her that of course I understood.
More calls came in from concerned parents and grandparents.
“We’re all ok,” I assured them.
Stories from Friends in the City
Later, I would learn that my sister Anne’s boyfriend, who
worked downtown, left his office immediately after the first plane hit, and
walked all the way up to the George Washington Bridge to get a cab out of
Manhattan and back to his home in Union City. I would hear many stories like his,
but the one that stays with me is from someone I met at a party well after that
terrible day. He worked in Tower 2. As soon as Tower 1 was hit, even though he
didn’t know what the enormous crashing sound was, he simply picked up his cell
phone, left his office, got on an elevator, went down to the lobby, and left
the building. It crossed his mind that he should probably take the steps in
case it was an emergency, but he opted for the fastest way down at his
disposal. He didn’t hesitate and he didn’t look back. He didn’t let the
announcements telling people not to evacuate confuse him. He knew he had to get
out of there, and thank God he did.
I also remember my friend from my days at Dodger
Productions, Marcia, telling me how she had just dropped her 2-year-old son Adam
off at daycare in Brooklyn and was watching Tower 1 burn across the river when,
right before her eyes, a plane flew into Tower 2. I can’t imagine how she felt
at that moment.
The image of the towers’ billowing black smoke, and later, after the collapses, the images of the smoldering pile that smoked for literally months, will be clear in my mind’s eye forever. That morning, I had to turn the TV off and go about my day. The reality of what was happening was too terrible to think about. It was impossible to understand. That morning, we couldn’t understand why people were jumping out of the towers. Were they jumping in the hope of being caught and saved? Or did they know they were committing suicide? What led to their decision to jump? Or was there no choice – it was either jump or be burned alive? Why couldn’t some sort of nets be set up to catch the jumpers? Why couldn’t helicopters evacuate people from the rooftops? (I later learned that it was because the heat from the flames was too intense for helicopters to get close to the roofs to attempt rescues.) It was all unfathomable.
Music Together
Two days later, Jackie and I went to her Music Together class
in town. We were able to have a fairly normal class somehow. But at the end,
Janet, the teacher, talked about how many local families had missing parents. I
hadn’t thought about all the Princeton residents who commute to the financial
district in NY every day. As she spoke, the children got restless and start to
cry. After class, my friend Cindy said that she was stunned by how the babies
cried, obviously because they sensed something was terribly wrong. I thought
they were just bored because the music and singing had stopped and they were
being ignored. Either way, we all left the class quite shaken.
Broadway
In addition to being in contact with Marcia, I was also in
touch with other Broadway friends. Sandy was the Company Manager of the splashy
revival of 42nd Street at the Ford Center (now the Lyric) on
W. 42nd St. that had just opened in May. All Broadway performances
had been canceled that Tuesday and Wednesday due to the tragic events, and attendance
took a noticeable dip when the shows re-opened.
Source: IBDB.com
Sandy told me that the Assistant Choreographer and Dance Captain
for 42nd Street, Kelli Barclay, wanted to do something to
help, so she designed, and enlisted other cast and shop members to help make,
dog tag necklaces with red, white and blue rhinestones on them in the shape of
an American flag. They sold them to raise money for the victims of the
terrorist attacks. I loved this intersection of Broadway glitz, patriotism and
community, and asked Sandy to mail me a bunch so that I could sell them, too.
We were really excited when one of the necklaces was worn by a model in a white
t-shirt on the cover of a department store catalog (Macy’s? Bloomingdales?) that
I got in the mail the following month. I still have my necklace, and wear it
whenever I’m feeling patriotic.
The off-peak train was eerily quiet. When I sneezed, it felt
like everyone in the car said, “Bless you.” The kindness between passengers was
palpable. This was in stark contrast to my years of commuting before Jackie was
born. One evening in 2000, mid-pregnancy, the train out of the City was so
packed that I had to stand in the aisle. I felt faint and nauseous, and needed
to sit down. I thought, “I have two options. I can either sit down in the aisle
and put my head between my knees, or I can make a general announcement that I’m
pregnant and need a seat – perhaps someone would get up for me.” I opted for
the latter. If it had been Sept. 19, 2001, there’s no question someone would
have given me his or her seat.
When we got off the train at Penn Station, we were greeted by men and women in fatigues and helmets carrying automatic rifles. Perhaps this was supposed to be a reassuring sight, but for me, it was scary. We tried not to stare as we rushed pass them, put our kids into their umbrella strollers, and made a bee-line for my old office at Dodger Productions in Times Square. Sandy, my friend and former colleague, was there and getting ready to cover the matinee of 42nd Street. She did something that I had never seen in all my years of working on Broadway: she asked if we wanted to come watch the show. I was stunned. There were never any comps for Broadway shows, so I wasn’t sure what she was offering. She said that she would set up two folding chairs in the back of the orchestra for us. So, with our babies on our laps, Cindy and I got to watch the first act of 42nd Street, and our well-behaved kids got their first taste of Broadway.
Major League Baseball
Meanwhile, before the events of Sept. 11, my family had been
preparing to celebrate my grandfather’s 90th birthday on Monday,
Sept. 17. My mother had bought six tickets (Grammy, her friend’s son - Tyler,
Gramps, John, Lisa and Jackie) to the Philadelphia Phillies game at Veteran’s
Stadium against the Atlanta Braves for the very night of his birthday. We also
arranged for his name to be scrolled on the jumbotron to commemorate his
birthday, and for a surprise celebration at our seats. After Sept. 11, the major
league baseball season had also been temporarily suspended, so we didn’t know
if we would get to have the party. Happily, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig
announced that the season would resume on Monday, Sept. 17. (The whole season
was pushed back a week.)
There was energy in the air as we found our way to our seats high above the first base line that night. American flags were distributed to everyone upon his/her arrival. We got there early, and waited for the pre-game ceremony. When the color guard brought out the American flag for the National Anthem, the crowd went crazy, slowly at first, but by the time the color guard was in position, everyone was on his or her feet, cheering for our men and women in uniform. Grandpop was confused. Actually, I was, too, at first. It seems that we were all slow to catch on, but eventually, everyone realized that this was our opportunity to show our pride in our nation, its strength, and its traditions. I explained to my 90-year-old grandfather that this was the first game after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the fans were cheering to thank our troops for protecting and defending us. Since Grandpop was a World War II veteran, we were thanking him, too.
