911: Never Forget the Victims and the Heroes
A tragedy in a world of tragedies
I wrote this two years ago. My memories never leave nor from the friends and family with whom I share these memories with.
“I wasn’t going to write this.
I was in the World Trade Center on 911. I parked my car in the North Tower parking lot that morning. I forgot some paperwork for a breakfast meeting and took a train up town to get them. I was scheduled for a meeting at the Windows of the World that morning. I was late, a friend of mine from work wasn’t.
He died. He had a wife and two young kids.
I evacuated my team and we walked across the 59th Street Bridge. The husband of one of the woman with us was a fireman and she couldn’t get in touch with him as we evacuated. He was one of my best friends. It turned out that he had swapped his scheduled time at the firehouse with his friend who needed the time.
The friend died. He had a wife and a new born daughter.
By the time my friend responded and got to WTC, he witnessed the impact of people as they fell from the Towers. It took many weeks of drunkenly consoling him to begin to ease his sense of guilt and the horror he witnessed. Guys do a poor job with grief.
There were too many funerals, to many widows and too many children without a Dad.
Because I was very close to so many firemen, friends who I used to drink beers with, Christmas parties at the firehouse with our kids, the loss rips my heart. The pain and the tears never leave me.
When I was able to get home, I was greeted by a relieved family with a hug that only survivors understand. Our backyard was littered with paper debris from the Towers.
We lived only miles away and we were down wind.
I never visit the 911 Memorial, even if I am with friends who want to go.
I can’t.
Many of my friends who survived that day and then spent days searching the pile for friends and others now have health problems.
Some have died so many years later, another funeral for another brother fireman that answered the call.
It’s what they did and it’s what they always do.
Sometimes I just cry, like I am now while writing this. It comes hard and comes fast.
I can never forget.
I wrote this because this is not about politics or blame or even terrorists, it’s simply about grief and tragic loss. It cuts a hole in your heart that never mends and leaves you with a pain that never heals.
You just get used to it.
Writers note: I wanted to add this memorial photograph that my community erected to remember the 34 people that died that day. We only have 4000 people here so we know everyone who died. The cross is from a girder of the WTC and it faces the Tower across the harbor. On a harbor buoy in the distance, a bell sadly tolls.”
Maybe I have survivors guilt but the pain never goes away. I have just gotten used to it.
I will stand with my friends tomorrow and again sadly think of that day. The wound still pulses with pain and tears still seem to flow.
Thank you for letting me share my grief.
That day defines “tragedy” in a world that sadly knows it’s meaning so well.
Emma Holiday
