After learning of Bin Laden's death, I was again revisited by memories of 9/11. I wasn't there in downtown New York, but like many others, I was supposed to be.
That morning was a such a beautiful fall day. Clear skies. Lovely temperature. I got dressed and drove my son to school. He was in kindergarten, then only 5 years old. It was a Tuesday. I had just begun teaching at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, legal writing and research for first year students, 1L. We were supposed to do the library tour that day, beginning at 8:30 a.m. ending at 9:50 a.m. But I was also scheduled to be at a mediation at the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan. It was my plan, to finish the tour, then walk across the street to the PATH station at Penn Station Newark, and be downtown by 10:15 and walk to the courthouse. I had informed everyone I would be late.
For anyone who knows me, I had being late. It is a neurotic pressure that I feel about being on time. Growing up with a mother who was forever late to everything, leaving me and friends standing on street corners waiting. Always the last one picked up from anything. So I am neurotically on time or early.
Had 9/11 been any other day but Tuesday, I would have been at the World Trade Center at 9:00 a.m. to get to the courthouse early, to walk, get a starbucks, and get my game face on for the mediation. I would have been walking when the second plane hit.
Instead, I was in the law library at Seton Hall, which looks out toward New York. We could see smoke in the sky, but not what it was from. Students began to approach us and tell us that two planes had hit the World Trade Center. I asked one, "you mean light aircraft?" He replied "no, 737s, big planes". A student asked me, "what do you think it is." Without thinking, I instinctually answered "Middle eastern terrorism" knowing how obsessed certain groups are with the financial district, since before the 1993 WTC bombing. As soon as I said it, I was upset with myself.
What if I was wrong? I just started this teaching gig and I am saying something that is politically incorrect. Did I just make a big mistake?
I continued the tour, while we watched the smoke on and off. Not realizing what the magnitude of what was happening. I was thinking in the back of my mind - what do I do? Do I still go to New York? We had not seen the pictures yet.
By 9:50 when the class was over, the Law School Dean gathered everyone in the lobby of the school, to discuss what was happening. The PATH trains were shut down. No one could get in or out of New York. Cell phones were not functioning. I could not call my husband, and he could not call me.
I recall offering my guest room to the Dean, if any student needed a place to stay who could not get home. I then headed for the car and began listening to the uncovering story. I recall a report of a bomb at the Supreme Court. I recall a report that the first tower at collapsed.
That seemed beyond my comprehension. I remember as a child the towers being built. Watching them rise over the New York horizon when we would go in and out of the City. I recall when they were lit up at night, being able to see them, as I watched planes come and go from the airports at night from my bedroom window, high on the hill in South Orange. I recalled how I took my ex-husband's nephew to visit New York and go to the observation deck there. But I also remembered how, around 1985, I did some secretarial temp work there for two weeks on the 87th floor. I was terrified. I could feel the movement of the building in high winds. One day at lunch, the local elevators were shut down, and we had to walk to the 75th floor to get the express elevators to get lunch. I always recalled thinking how dangerous these buildings were if a fire started. I recalled the 1993 bombing and how my fears were confirmed.
But now the towers were crumbing. I drove west down Route 280, still unable to get my husband on the phone. I thought to stop at my house, just off the highway on the way to my office. He was there, with the tv on, frantic because he had not been able to find me, and knowing that I was supposed to be in New York. I saw the fires and the people running and was transfixed by the horror, and the fear. It was surreal, worse than any horror film of mass destruction.
I called my office to tell them I would be there later, but my husband and secretary both jumped at me. She said the office was closing, don't come. My husband said that we are under attack and we are not going anywhere. We debated about picking up my son, who was only a few blocks away, and decided to leave him at school, that he would be safe there. We watched the day unfold. We picked up my son at 2:30, and walked him home to discuss what was happening before he saw it on the television. We didn't know if he would even understand it.
The next few weeks were equally surreal. In October, I began a trial in South Jersey and would drive on the Turnpike South every day at 7 a.m. As I approached the Turnpike from Route 280, I could see the smoke was still rising from the pile and it was as if someone had punched a hole in the sky where the towers and other buildings should have been, and where the people who had died should have still been working.
It made no sense to me, that much hate. That much evil. We are all people trying to survive, to do the best for our families, to educate our children, to keep them healthy and safe. Why can't we find common ground? Why is compromise viewed as weakness? These are questions that continue to resonate with me, nearly ten years later.
This week's news that Osama Bin Laden had finally been found and killed, was surprising. Like many I believed we might never find him. Like many I don't believe that anyone can really have closure from this even in our history, but many now, we can begin to move forward more, than look back. To plan the future, rather than worry about what we didn't finish in the past.
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