Reflections 10 Years LAter
Driving down the West Side Highway on a rainy September afternoon, just days before the 10th anniversary of when the Twin Towers came crumbling down and our world changed. The new Freedom Tower rises high in the air. The clouds are low and hide the top of it from view. I remember back before 9/11 when the clouds used to hide the top of the World Trade Center. Coming out of the East Broadway subway stop on my way to work every morning I’d instinctively look down Division Street as I crossed Canal and look at the World Trade Center. Many days it would be caught in the morning sunlight, a shining beacon of comfort. Some days it would be shrouded in those clouds and I would feel sad for all the tourists who would not get the spectacular view of the city and land beyond.
Passing the new World Trade Center I go back in my mind to a warm August evening in 2001. An outdoor concert on the plaza between the Twin Towers. I was with a special person that I was madly in love with. We brought food to share, he a potato salad with mint and I a quiche of mushrooms and spinach. The warm evening air wafted through the plaza from the Hudson River and the beautiful music of the girl duo group danced around us. After a summer of traveling in Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan for work, I was happy to be able to spend some free time in the city I called home. Sitting next to Ben on this night I felt like this was home too. After years of running around the world, this is who I wanted to stop for, to settle down with. I leaned back in my chair, putting my arm around the back of his chair and looked up at the tall, tall buildings above me. They seemed to go on forever and my heart sailed up on high, trying to get to the top of them. I closed my eyes and smiled, I was very happy.
The love I had for Ben was not reciprocated and he wanted to be nothing more than friends. My heart crumbled like the towers did on 9/11 and I was left with a big empty hole in my heart. Love, as I knew it, would never come into my life again. It was lost down in the ashes of the World Trade Center. Yet like a phoenix, love did resurface from the ashes. It had changed form from that of a romantic love to one of a paternal love. I had never wanted my own children but somehow got over 300 of them in my life because of 9/11. It took a few years for them to break down the icy walls around my heart but they did. I have my Afghans now who bring me joy and have made me care about humanity once again. On my first visit to Canada in 2009, I realized how much I was still a part of their life and how much they wanted guidance in their lives. “What is the one thing you guys need in your lives?”, I asked one of my students in Toronto. “Love”, was the reply. “Who can give you that love you need?” I replied. “You can Kaka Tom.” was the answer. I may have lost something on 9/11, like so many others did, but I gained so much.
September 11th was a beautiful, sunny day. The sky was a vivid blue and there was a tinge of autumn in the air. There has been no other day like it since. It was as if God had painted a perfect backdrop to the most horrific event many of us will ever live through. I can still see the silent fireball explode out of the South tower, feel the heat and air push against my face on the corner of Division and Allen Street, a few seconds delay as the boom traveled across Lower Manhattan. The cacophony of Chinese, Spanish and English responses to the explosion—shock and disbelief in three languages. The scene of the burning towers played out from the 5th floor of PS 42 and we teachers tried to keep some air of calm for the children’s sake. I remember being on the roof of the school and watching the North tower silently sink down into a crumbled mass of dust and ruin, the massive roar of destruction following seconds behind. All of us New Yorkers on the roof tops watching our world change, screaming in disbelief and holding up our arms as if to try and hold up the falling icon of our metropolis. I look at the Empire State Building waiting for it to collapse as well but it stood there stoically, once again the tallest building in New York. For once in my life I felt a need to defend my country and go seek revenge from those who did this. They, whoever “they” were, would pay for this.
The morning of September 11th, 2011 is quiet. The sky is not a clear blue like it was ten years ago on this day. It is overcast but the sun peeks out now and then form above. I am busy packing for my trip to Afghanistan. As the city remembers the horrific day ten years ago, I will be flying eastward to Kabul. My work with the next generation of Afghanistan is not over, nor do I see it being over any time soon. While many in the world have given up on Afghanistan, I have not. Before 9/11 I was a rudderless boat sailing without a destination, now I know clearly where my direction is and on this day as my city is full of somber remembrance, I sail on eastward to a country that needs me.
Passing the new World Trade Center I go back in my mind to a warm August evening in 2001. An outdoor concert on the plaza between the Twin Towers. I was with a special person that I was madly in love with. We brought food to share, he a potato salad with mint and I a quiche of mushrooms and spinach. The warm evening air wafted through the plaza from the Hudson River and the beautiful music of the girl duo group danced around us. After a summer of traveling in Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan for work, I was happy to be able to spend some free time in the city I called home. Sitting next to Ben on this night I felt like this was home too. After years of running around the world, this is who I wanted to stop for, to settle down with. I leaned back in my chair, putting my arm around the back of his chair and looked up at the tall, tall buildings above me. They seemed to go on forever and my heart sailed up on high, trying to get to the top of them. I closed my eyes and smiled, I was very happy.
The love I had for Ben was not reciprocated and he wanted to be nothing more than friends. My heart crumbled like the towers did on 9/11 and I was left with a big empty hole in my heart. Love, as I knew it, would never come into my life again. It was lost down in the ashes of the World Trade Center. Yet like a phoenix, love did resurface from the ashes. It had changed form from that of a romantic love to one of a paternal love. I had never wanted my own children but somehow got over 300 of them in my life because of 9/11. It took a few years for them to break down the icy walls around my heart but they did. I have my Afghans now who bring me joy and have made me care about humanity once again. On my first visit to Canada in 2009, I realized how much I was still a part of their life and how much they wanted guidance in their lives. “What is the one thing you guys need in your lives?”, I asked one of my students in Toronto. “Love”, was the reply. “Who can give you that love you need?” I replied. “You can Kaka Tom.” was the answer. I may have lost something on 9/11, like so many others did, but I gained so much.
September 11th was a beautiful, sunny day. The sky was a vivid blue and there was a tinge of autumn in the air. There has been no other day like it since. It was as if God had painted a perfect backdrop to the most horrific event many of us will ever live through. I can still see the silent fireball explode out of the South tower, feel the heat and air push against my face on the corner of Division and Allen Street, a few seconds delay as the boom traveled across Lower Manhattan. The cacophony of Chinese, Spanish and English responses to the explosion—shock and disbelief in three languages. The scene of the burning towers played out from the 5th floor of PS 42 and we teachers tried to keep some air of calm for the children’s sake. I remember being on the roof of the school and watching the North tower silently sink down into a crumbled mass of dust and ruin, the massive roar of destruction following seconds behind. All of us New Yorkers on the roof tops watching our world change, screaming in disbelief and holding up our arms as if to try and hold up the falling icon of our metropolis. I look at the Empire State Building waiting for it to collapse as well but it stood there stoically, once again the tallest building in New York. For once in my life I felt a need to defend my country and go seek revenge from those who did this. They, whoever “they” were, would pay for this.
The morning of September 11th, 2011 is quiet. The sky is not a clear blue like it was ten years ago on this day. It is overcast but the sun peeks out now and then form above. I am busy packing for my trip to Afghanistan. As the city remembers the horrific day ten years ago, I will be flying eastward to Kabul. My work with the next generation of Afghanistan is not over, nor do I see it being over any time soon. While many in the world have given up on Afghanistan, I have not. Before 9/11 I was a rudderless boat sailing without a destination, now I know clearly where my direction is and on this day as my city is full of somber remembrance, I sail on eastward to a country that needs me.
posted by Tom T at 7:39 PM
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