The Difference A Day Makes

August 1998, I toured the newly remodeled building.
An earlier car bombing had ironically made the location a perfect match for our needs.
Our 2001 annual meeting would be held at the Marriott World Trade Center.
Moreover, scheduling conflicts meant that we would hold the meeting earlier than usual, September 9-11.
A decision that will haunt me for years to come.

I have always feared terrorism.
My father always warned that extremists in the Middle East would be our undoing.
He was right.
I just never thought it would happen so close to home.

The sun was shining, but the day was hectic.
I had a television interview and was late to the breakfast.
I wound my way through the ballroom to a table near the front, where the students were seated.
One young woman brought her camera to take a picture of me to show her friends.
It didn't seem that long ago that I was looking up to the few women in my profession.

Then it hit. Was it a bomb?
The crystal above us gently chimed.
The floor shook.
Bread spilled from preciously dressed tables.
All hesitated, waiting for the moment to stop.
It didn't. The attack had just begun.

My stomach sunk.
When lightening strikes twice, the second time should not be a surprise.
I knew from the first moment that the room moved that this was no accident.

What to do?
Get out, with as many people as possible.
Keep the students calm.
Stay focused…the horror of it all would have to be dealt with later.
Now was the time to act.

The magnitude of the damage is temporarily masked by the chaos that surrounds it.
Thousands of pieces of paper are gently floating to their graves below.
Glass is shattering and pieces of debris are falling to earth.
Focus.

Run to the water, no high buildings there.
Call Art.
Not a bomb, a plane…the bodies, the parts, no time, must get away from danger.
Leza can't move, paralyzed by fear and asthma.
Her medication, with everyone else's belongings, is in the hotel.

The sirens are loud, and there is another noise…another plane.
It's so loud, and then it hit.
Bodies flew with bits of glass, plane, and more papers…so many papers for an information age.

Closer to the water, urban legend is flying.
The Pentagon was hit.
Was the Empire State building also attacked?
Military jets are in the air.
The island is secure.

Call, call, dial again…find a line out.
Jamie's office rings and answers.
Karen patiently takes numbers of all those around us…it is our only link out.
Informed that the New York office is open.
We had a home base, if we could only get to it.

People jump to escape the inferno that burns inside the twin towers.
They leave in pairs, some holding hands all the way down.
It takes so long for a body to fall eighty floors or more.
What races through one's mind as they drop?
At least they are not alone.
We are all painfully there with them.

Then, the first building falls, as if hit by an enormous bomb.
Adolfo watches the wind.
He is a sailor, he sees it shift.
He knows the debris is coming our way.
There is no escape.

The sun disappears.
Panic strikes, we lose some of our people to a stampeding group of high school students.
A woman pushing a wheel chair tries to get help, but people ignore her pleas.
A mob scene breaks out at a glass restaurant.

We move away as quickly as possible.
Somebody is handing out facemasks.
Leza gets as many as she can.
People are tearing their shirts, breathing through ties, anything to filter their lungs from the debris.

We find more from our group as we move toward the east highway.
Find as many as possible, hold hands, don't lose any more.
Mike appears from the shadows.
He was on his way to the meeting when the first plane hit, and began reporting the scene for Bloomberg.
He was there when the building collapsed.
He finds us in the chaos.
He is covered in an inch of soot and blood.
Grass is imbedded in his clothes, presumably from the impact as he hit the ground.

We try to clean his wounds.
Annette feebly tries to bandage him with a bandage she found in her purse.
Soon, he is off.
His Bloomberg truck found him.
He runs to catch it, and keep working.
The show must go on.

The air is still thick, but we can see the sky again.
A woman in front of us is struggling on a crutch.
The panic-stricken selfishly push her to move faster.
I give up my mask, and Tim and I fasten it to her face.

The tides of refugees now fill the roads and are crossing the bridges.
I stop an ambulance…too many asthmatics already…no help for Leza.
It is a long walk to our mid-town offices, but we can make it.
Then, a bus appears, and the passengers usher us on.
Everyone inside is so clean.
By now, the soot is imbedded in my being.

It is still a long trek to the office, with many stops along the way.
Why are people so hesitant to ask for help?
I bang on a door to get to a bathroom.
A restaurant provides water and a place for Leza to rest.

We make it to our mid-town offices.
It is a place to rest, get food, and medication.
We organize to find transportation, housing, passports.
I know the consulates, and start work on the passports.
Others work on housing and transportation.
I get the incidentals, toothbrushes, tooth paste, make-up remover, deodorant, and medication.
Must not lose Leza to asthma.

We call other mid-town offices to locate friends and reunite husbands and wives.
Art calls me at the mid-town office at the very moment I was calling him.
Ros calls just to hear my voice.
I am confused.
I am fine, but have more work to do.
Must not stop…must not think.

I am the last to leave.
Kathleen will take me in, but it is still a long walk.
I move up Manhattan.
The children are playing in Central Park.
There is something surreal in the scene given the horrors of the day.

A doorman notices the soot on my clothes.
He walks me to the corner.
Others direct me the rest of the way.

Kathleen is waiting outside.
She holds me.
Then gives me clothes, and later steak, wine, and bourbon.
Finally, I shower.
The warm water washes the soot from my skin, but I can still feel its residue in my lungs.

I talk to my family.
The conversations are short. (How can I speak of the horrors I have seen?)
I must reassure the children, and Griffin is sick again.
Will he be in the hospital tonight?
Art has a huge job at home.

I lay my head to rest that night, knowing sleep would elude me.
The pictures of the day flash through my mind.
The horrors that will haunt me for years to come begin to take shape and form.
We are at War, a war like we have never known in this country.
We have hit a new turning point, one from which we will continue, but not recover.

The sun rises, and many challenges lie ahead.
A piece of my soul rests with all those lost that day.
The months pass and, as humans, we adapt.
The holidays come, and coffee table books of the disaster become best sellers.
Life goes on, capitalism prevails, and all but a few know and feel what we have truly lost.
Innocence lost is at its best wisdom gained, and not much more.

-Diane C. Swonk, December 22, 2001