Looking back

Yesterday, 9/11, I received this from my son and have his permission to post it here.

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Has it really been 25 years since that horrible day? … Dang, even typing that first sentence brought tears to my eyes. I’m going to go through a lot of tissues typing this out. Some traumas just don’t get duller with time. They might get dust covered and forgotten for a while, but when pulled into the light they’re just as sharp edged as ever and always cause pain. What’s really scary is that I’m one of the lucky ones. Read on to learn my tale…

9/11 was a Tuesday. I was working at FAE (the art company I’ve mentioned before) and had spent the previous week down in Texas. As the director of storage, I’d flown down to take inventory of their warehouse and reorganize it as they’d tried to claim it was full. I shuffled things around to optimize the space and freed up almost 20%, letting us take on a few more clients to store their antiques and artwork. Instead of flying home at the end of the week, they had an extra company van that was needed in our Boston office so I drove it back up. I stopped for the weekend in PA to visit my father and on Monday continued up to Secaucus NJ to visit our office there, staying at a hotel only a couple block aways from the warehouse. Tuesday morning had me in that warehouse taking inventory with plans to stay the day and head back to Boston on Wednesday. Then the news came on the TV (always on in the corner of the office) about the first plane impact. A couple of us tried to get to the roof to see it. Of course, the roof hatch was locked, and by the time we got the keys (climbing up a ladder 50′ high on the wall inside the warehouse) and got onto the flat roof, the second plane had already hit. Secaucus is on the river almost directly across from the twin towers, so we had a good view.

I’ll never forget the first tower falling for two reasons. First, because I didn’t realize what was happening at the time. It just looked like a huge cloud of dust was rising from below to obscure the tower. For a minute I thought it was still there, just not able to be seen. We speculated that it had to have been an explosion at the base that put so much dust out. Then someone realized the tower was gone. … and the second reason I’ll never forget was because I was wondering if I had just watched my mother die. 

She worked for Price Waterhouse Coopers Lybrand (or whatever version of name they had at that time) and I knew she split her time between the Boston and NY offices. One week at home (Boston, as she lived in Beverly MA) and one week away, but I didn’t know which week this was! I knew their offices were in one of the towers as she’d described the view from her office window. Of course, cell phones were jammed so there was no getting through to her. I went down inside to try using a landline, and didn’t see the second tower fall, but mentally my math went from 25% to 50% that I’d lost her. Eventually we decided that no work was going to get done, so we closed up and I returned to the hotel. The bar there was offering half price margaritas. So, I started alternating doing tequila shots with margaritas all afternoon and evening. Side note: I’ve only ever been totally trashed drunk twice in my life (although many many times I’ve achieved a very nice buzz without going too far). Once when I was 21, I deliberately set out to do it just to see what it was like. (So not worth it. Don’t understand why people do it.) This was the second and last time it happened. (Ok, sometimes it’s necessary. But just getting drunk without a good reason still makes no sense to me).

Finally, late at night, I got a call… from my mom! 

She was at their other NY office that day! (that I didn’t know about) Turns out it was also in NJ, in a town just two miles south of where I was. Her day had been worse than mine because her office window looked out on the towers so while I was wondering if she was inside, she was looking out knowing that friends and co-workers of hers were dying while she watched. With flights grounded and knowing that no work would get done anytime soon, I arranged to pick her up the next morning and together we drove back to Boston knowing just how very lucky we were. 

So, that is my tale of 9/11. Never to be forgotten. 

John LaRoche