Twin Towers Disaster

A woman came to the bus stop and calmly reported that a jumbo jet crashed into the Twin Towers. She must be mistaken, I think. She probably meant one of those small prop jobs. I imagined the buildings, standing resolutely, the shining legs of a metal god, shrugging off the accident like a mosquito bite. It was annoying but not too tragic.

Didn't a plane crash into the Empire State Building in the forties? I ignore the report and mention my little fact to the mothers surrounding me. My bit of trivia fails to move them.

Inside my house, TV graphics blazed with the words AMERICA UNDER ATTACK or ATTACK ON AMERICA. My wife and I wondered what the hell was going on. A second plane, just moments before we flipped on the TV, crashed into the other tower.

Then, a third crash. A plane slammed into the Pentagon. My body shook. I wanted to puke. I didn't know what to do with myself. I flipped through the channels, absorbing as much of the information as possible.

America really was under attack! It was real!

We were feeling what other countries had felt throughout modern history. Images of Beruit, with its bombed out buildings and war torn streets, came to mind. I'm afraid of the skies over my own country. I compare the feeling to that of Britain when Germany pounded her with bombs. I feel the same shock that the people of Japan must have felt when they learned of the bombing of Hiroshima.

On thousands and thousands of postcards, magnets, ashtrays and chochkas in homes around the country--around the world--the Twin Towers boldly reach above every other building in New York. The towers were pillars of the financial world, not to mention the pride of our city. Now, somehow, someone has taken them away from us. Everyone housed inside and the emergency personal who risked their lives for others went down with them.

America has its scars. Pearl Harbor, Oklahoma City and the Kennedy assassination crease our nation's soul with sadness. This tragedy burns the heart of America. How can we heal from this wound? Will we heal? Those questions we cannot answer except by waiting out the days.

My son comes home from school at 3:30. I am numb to the events. I saw the crash from every angle. I heard all the commentary. I passed through all the classic phases one deals with during tragedies such as this. He announces that he knew all about it already. We explain the seriousness of the situation but I fear that he may be too young to understand.

We watch the news for him while he plays with his friends, exchanging playground rumors. Hours later, after my wife, a nurse, goes to work her midnight shift, I sit in my kitchen wondering what to do next.

I worry most about bedtime. Not mine, but my son's. How do I put my child to bed tonight and pretend that he's safe? I feel vulnerable, more than ever before in my life. What do I tell my son about this great American tragedy?

I look at the skyline of Manhattan on my television. A red cloud billows from the space between buildings where the World Trade Center should be. A pit has opened and swallowed the Twin Towers. I imagine the great groan of some demon as the building plunges further down into the maw.

I tuck in my son to a clear, starry night. I don't want to let go of him. I don't want to walk out of his room and pretend that this is not a big deal. I pray as I finally leave him to sleep that he never knows the fear of the world that I do right now.