A Day In The Life

September 11th holds unforgettable meaning for those of us living in the United States. I live 15 minutes from New York City, making the World Trade Center- the Twin Towers, not a tourist attraction, but a part of the skyline I was able to see from a local highway, the towering size of the towers looming over us as we drove down the West Side Highway, a place where people I knew went to work everyday. My memory of that morning is still vivid in my mind these 16 years later. I was watching the news before going to work that morning and suddenly the broadcast changed to a live bulletin of the film footage of a plane crashing into the first tower. It was surreal, as if in reality this must have been some kind of movie stunt. I left for work and upon arrival the boys in the school where I worked were all buzzing about whether this could be true or not. We turned on the TV in the office and watched in disbelief as the second tower was hit and then some 20 minutes later crumbled to the ground. It was too much for the mind to absorb. Those buildings were filled with people. How could this possibly have happened?

I can remember getting on the computer when I got home and seeing endless frantic messages on message boards set up for the many businesses that occupied the World Trade Center, people posting names, trying to find loved ones. One of the men who lives in my town had chosen that morning to take a later bus to work, saving him from the fate others met. Another young woman was not as fortunate, leaving her parents with unbearable grief that took many years for them to begin to come to terms with, but eventually leading them to start a memorial fund to help people. You can read about her life here

I read a beautiful article in the New York Times this past week, about a man named Welles Crowther, who died in the attack at age 24. From the article written by Corey Kilgannon:

He is credited with helping at least 10 people escape the tower in several trips up and down stairwells, before perishing alongside a group of New York City firefighters. After leaving his mother  a voice mail message telling her that he was O.K., he was never heard from again. Ms. Crowther said she followed her “mother’s instinct” after the attacks, searching for information about her son and his final moments. She combed through news coverage even after her son’s remains were recovered from ground zero six months after the attacks.

Two months after that recovery, on Memorial Day 2002, she read a lengthy New York Times article on the chaos inside the towers before they collapsed, which included eyewitnesses describing an unnamed rescuer: a coolheaded office worker who appeared in the Sky Lobby on the South Tower’s 78th floor.

“A mysterious man appeared,” who managed to locate the only passable stairwell and began marshaling down groups of injured and dazed people, according to the article, which also gave a telling detail about the rescuer that floored Ms. Crowther. He wore a red bandanna over his face to keep out smoke and debris. “Oh my god, Welles,” she gasped. “I found you.” She summoned her husband, who nearly 20 years earlier had given two handkerchiefs to their son as he dressed for church one Sunday morning: a white pocket square and a utilitarian red one to blow his nose.

“One to show and one to blow,” Mr. Welles told the boy, who after that was never without a red bandanna.

He wore it under his hockey and fire helmets as a teen and under his lacrosse helmet while playing for Boston College. He carried it in the pocket of his business suit every day to the World Trade Center. And apparently, as his parents were now reading, he pulled it out that morning before organizing a group rescue in the burning South Tower on floors not yet reached by firefighters.

He used it to put out some blazes and assigned a woman, Ling Young, to carry it down the stairs while he carried an injured woman on his back. He led a first group to the 61st floor, then pulled his bandanna over his mouth and told them he was going back up to guide down others. He later joined firefighters who had a tool to free trapped victims. His body was eventually recovered among those of firefighters at a command center in the South Tower’s lobby — mere steps from escape.

The Crowthers contacted survivors quoted in the Times article who then reviewed family photographs of Welles Crowther and confirmed that he was their rescuer. Maintaining composure during chaotic rescues was drilled into his son at the Rockland County Fire Training Center, where he became a junior member and gained full firefighter status at 18. Where training included searching smoke-filled rooms and fiery structures and carrying out heavy dummies, he said.

“On 9/11, he put that training to its highest and best use,” said Mr. Crowther, who added that his son told him a few weeks before the 2001 attack that he had decided to leave his finance job and become a New York City firefighter.

September 11, 2001 forever changed how we think about what evil is possible in the world, changed how we think about trust and security and how what was once unthinkable can in reality happen.

The Freedom Tower now stands tall close to where the Twin Towers stood, reminding us that that from the horror of what happened we could rebuild. Though our sense of innocence is gone, and we now must live without naivety about the possibility of what can happen, we are stronger for it.

Today I think of the families who suffered the loss of their loved ones that horrible day.  May their memory be for a blessing.