 |
|
|
|
||
|
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
Version |
|
September
10, 2002 9:00 a.m. |
|
live near the Brooklyn waterfront, directly across from lower Manhattan.
Every morning when I open the door to go to work, there is a hole in the
sky where the World Trade Center used to be, a memento mori, a
reminder of death. Not just the death of the 2,800, but of death itself,
and the impermanence of all things human. That hole is the first thing
I see in the morning when I leave my house, and the last thing I see at
night before I come inside for my supper. Heartbreaking as it is, I have
come to be bitterly grateful for that sight.
It is, I think, good to be reminded of the tragic sense of life — good, because it reflects the truth, and having that front and center, day and night, helps one guard against blithe optimism, our American temptation. Forewarned is forearmed. Before September 11, I used to marvel at the Twin Towers and the lower Manhattan skyline. The morning sun glinted off the towers, twin diamonds in a crowning achievement of mankind: New York City, the breathtaking palace atop that shining city on the hill that is America. At night, the lights of the towers glittered against the scrim of night, a constellation of our own making. You cannot see the stars at night from New York City, but you didn't have to if you had the Twin Towers.
The last time I saw the towers as they were was one year ago tonight, I had a drink with a friend in the neighborhood, and said goodbye to him at my doorstep, watching him walk away with the towers over his shoulder. I next saw them on fire, and within two hours, saw nothing.
They were there and now they are not: that simple brute fact I still have trouble accepting. Video of the plane crashes and the two collapses doesn't bother me; rather, what I can't take are pre-9/11 images of the World Trade Center. Not long ago, my little niece showed me video of her visit to New York three years ago. At one point, there is a shot with the Twin Towers in the distance. As soon as I saw them there, my chest tightened, tears leapt to my eyes, and I had to leave the room. That video clip was a snapshot from a time and place when we could take things for granted, from a day when the mighty towers were mere background scenery. Of course, we never could, not really; but it was easy in our peace and prosperity, to forget that.
In the past few days, I have been cataloguing memories from last autumn, which time has sifted, and which seem to me significant. I shall never forget the joyous face of an Arab Muslim shopkeeper that morning, talking excitedly on the phone when I stopped to buy water as the Trade Center was burning across the river. Nor shall I forget the sound of my voice telling a New York Post colleague I was trying to coax to follow me off the Brooklyn Bridge and into lower Manhattan, "Oh, come on, they're not going to fall." I believed it. Thirty seconds later, the south tower fell.
Though I didn't see it with my own eyes, others did: Monsignor Ignace Sadek, an elderly Catholic priest in Brooklyn, rushed down to the waterfront to pray for the dead and dying as the towers burned. When the first tower came down, the vast and choking cloud of ash lumbered across the harbor to the shores of Brooklyn. No one knew what poisons were in that cloud, but that old priest stood there with his hands raised in prayer, and with terrified strangers falling at his feet begging for absolution for their sins. I think about what Msgr. Sadek did a lot those days, doing what he could for people, with no regard for his own safety.
It was moving beyond words to live in this city during that time, and to bear witness to the suffering and strength of the Fire Department of New York and their families. It was also amazing to see how neighbors rushed to do what we could for them. When they returned from Ground Zero a damaged truck to our local firehouse, which lost eight men, a volunteer crew from the local Jehovah's Witness congregation showed up unasked and scrubbed it clean. I remember seeing on the subway a group of Southern Baptist volunteers who came up from Kentucky to help out, and having a hell of a time keeping my composure when confronted with the sheer goodness of people. Things like that happened over and over and over.
But nothing was so moving as the example of the surviving firemen. When a fire truck would go by, or firemen would pass, people would stop what they were doing and cheer, or salute, or just stand at attention while great men passed. I stood on Fifth Avenue one afternoon as a firefighter's coffin was carried out of St. Patrick's Cathedral, loaded onto a bier, and accompanied by pipers playing "Going Home." And I thought: Remember this. Remember it always.
We have all moved on. Of course the families whose loved ones were murdered that day will never move on, but the days of living at that gut-churning intensity are over, and have been for a while. That's normal, and it's a relief. But it's also normal, perhaps, to miss what was good about that time. There is a prophetic legend that says the day will come when all men will have the true state of their souls revealed to them in a moment of supernatural illumination. I think 9/11 was a presentiment of that, at least for us here in the shadow of Ground Zero.
We learned in our hour of trial that we Americans can still be strong, and united, and compassionate, even to the point of giving, as at Gettysburg, the last full measure of our devotion. As soon as one writes a line like that, one groans at the cliché — but it is true! Living here last fall was to walk around in an environment free of all irony and pretense. There was no such thing as "evil" here then; there was only Evil. There was no "good," but Good. No ersatz "patriotism," only the real thing, straight up. There were no "real men," but real men, no "love" but love, true love, for soldier and statesman, public servants (cops, firefighters, the mayor), good Samaritans, neighbors, our fellow Americans and even the good Lord above.
On the other hand, it's not right to dwell too much on that, because spiritual self-flattery is poison. If we found we had strengths we didn't realize, it is less evident that the faults we have were recognized and repented of. The hole in the sky strikes me as a reproach, and a warning. Even though I watched thousands of people die in an instant, I still do things I ought not to do, and leave undone things I ought to have done. Whether I like it or not, the certainty of mortality greets me at my doorstep in the morning, a reminder to pray for the dead, for whom a spectacular and gruesome death came out of the clear blue sky, and to give thanks for the living. The hole is a sign of the solemn responsibility that comes with having been spared for at least one more day — another day to try to get it right, to be good, to make something of the presence of grace, fortitude, courage and kindness that were so real last fall one could taste them.
We were wide awake in those dread days, and we're falling asleep again. Before long, the mutilated New York skyline will look normal. But for now, while we still can remember, the hole in the sky is a mirror for those with eyes to see.
O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.— W.H. Auden, from "As I Walked Out One Evening" (1937)