I’ve said this before, but now I’ve said it again on my day job.
What I didn’t say, was this: Three days after the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, I and a photographer friend named Al went to New York with the army of journalists who descended on that city to try to figure out what happened. Based on Al’s research, we ended up at a Brooklyn firehouse, where the neighborhood was busy throwing its arms around its own Squad 1, an elite firehouse that answered the call that Tuesday morning for a 1060 — a major calamity.
I am the wife of a firefighter. I live with the idea that one day, Mr. DJ may not come home, but I trust his judgment, his training, and his smarts that if there’s a way out of a calamity, he will find it.
But how does one prepare for a building folding up like an accordion, killing thousands in an instant? I, like everyone else, watched that happen on television, my hand over my mouth, on some level not believing it really happened until I saw it for myself.
It really happened. As Al and I went over the bridge at daybreak, the stinking mess was still smoking.
It was also emitting a noxious cloud that killed would take more lives, though more slowly than the original casualties.
We stayed at Squad 1 for two days while the neighbors waited to hear the awful news that they’d lost all 12 firefighters. I watched people form an endless casserole brigade. I witnessed solemn hugs, and I saw this: a little girl in a tutu drop a wadded-up $5 into a donations jar (for the families of the 12 who were over at what firefighters were then calling “The Show.” “Ground Zero” would come later), and then, she threw her stick-thin arms around the legs of a firefighter on duty, a beautiful Black Irish man who could only look down at her, and nod stiffly.
I swore I’d not walk up to any one and ask questions and I didn’t. I didn’t have to. Life unfolded in front of me, I stood there, quiet in the corner in awe at the raw and open heart of America beating strong. I don’t think I’ve ever been so moved. Even now, typing this, I can work up tears. We’d been slammed to the mat, and there we were, busily brushing one another off, asking “What can I do? Are you OK?”
Al and I came back to Hartford, Al to share his heart-wrenching photos, me to write a story. The package ran in the paper and then sank like a stone into the sea of tales churning out of the day.
But it changed me profoundly in more ways than I can count even now, nine years later.
I’d just come off of six years at Hartford Seminary. I had spent time in classes with Muslims, talked with them, eaten with them, read their sacred text. When that big, beating heart started constricting, I could not be a part of that.
And then, about six months after Brooklyn, a friend suggested my cough that wouldn’t go away might be something serious. I dragged myself to a doctor (I’m not a fan of doctor visits), who sent me to a pulmonologist, who found that I’d developed moderate-to-severe asthma. I got inhalers, pills, shots, the whole nine yards, and I learned not to let colds go too long.
As my pulmonologist tried to find the reason for my asthma, he began exploring the fumes I’d breathed in in New York. Evidently, there in Brooklyn, where the air smelled like burned flesh and gunpowder, and there in Manhattan, when I went to see how close I could get to the wreckage, I breathed in agents that seared my airways.
Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself. The effects of my asthma have dissipated over time, and I rarely have a moment when I can’t catch my breath. Anyway, it was worth it. As a respected colleague said: It was an honor to be a witness.
About that pulmonologist: He’s a Muslim, and we began chatting during my office visits. I feel sorry for whoever was scheduled after me, because I took up as much of his time as possible. To say he was a caring man doesn’t begin to describe him. To say he was patient with my stupid questions doesn’t, either.
I learned a great deal from my doctor, and not just about the workings of my lungs. And yes, I know how this sounds. By all means, strike up the kazoos for a round of “Kumbayah,” but as I was honored to cover 9/11 up close, I am honored to be a patient of this particular doctor, to read his sacred texts, and to stop a moment before I hate, take a deep breath (sometimes courtesy of Advair), and to listen.
