Remembering That Day

Shortly after I entered our building, people started to gather together on the seventh floor to watch the events unfold on TV. After the first building collapsed a few ventured onto the roof only to quickly return in a stunned silence, overwhelmed by the enormity of what they had witnessed. We shut the door to the roof after that.

“We’ve been attacked.” Shock, disbelief, and horror melded with sadness and fear as everyone scrambled to locate loved ones, friends, family … overwhelming relief as spouses and partners, children and parents were reached, replaced by panic as we learned a colleague’s sister was on an American Airlines flight, replaced by gratitude when we confirmed she’d safely landed.

We went into automatic survival mode, staff volunteering to scour the local markets for food and water, not letting people leave until it was safe … not knowing when that would be. Everyone ate together in our conference room, knowing that whatever comfort we could find right then would be in community.

Since the attack was early, most clients had not yet arrived. But some had and we waited for them to awake from anesthesia and made sure they had a place to go and someone to go with. On that most terrible morning, people were kind and generous and helpful. In the streets, vendors set up coffee and water stations, handing out flip-flops to the shoeless gray ghosts who were walking home, covered in soot and ashes, their high heels and work shoes long abandoned.

We won’t ever forget the goodness that surfaced that day.

I walked home with others through the downtown streets, smelling the acrid smoke, seeing the paper and ashes. I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and paused at the silence. After the bridge, it was just silent. We had no idea if the world was about to end, or if it already had.

Our centers were closed for three days — the city had closed everything below 14^th Street — and we scrambled to call and reschedule our clients. It’s ironic: we had a disaster recovery plan in place, but it was focused on something happening to our clinic; this, we weren’t prepared for. But then, nobody was.

Our medical staff went to Beth Israel and the WTC site to offer assistance, and our social workers went to the site and to our community partners, offering help when needed. On Friday, September 14, we reopened. We had a social worker at each of the three centers and we held an open forum at MSC to come together and share our stories and concerns, to talk about what we did and how we felt. One of the Muslims on staff spoke about how accepted he felt here, how he wasn’t being judged and how special this community is. Our staff really pulled together. The week after the attacks, we planted flowers and brought flowers to the local fire station. Staff donated money to the 9/11 Fund and both the agency and our board matched the donation. For two weeks, we offered all of our services free to everyone who needed them. In addition to our reproductive care clients, we spoke with many people who came in just needing to talk. We talked with them and helped them find counseling or medical care as they needed. We were all so proud to work here.

For days and weeks after, I faced the photographs posted around the city. People searched for their loved ones, desperately holding out hope against all odds. Downtown stores and restaurants were left frozen in time; a colleague spoke of a store, the floor covered in ash, a fork still stuck in the food on a plate, abandoned on the counter days before.

There was just such a sense of sadness. Not anger or calls for retribution. Just overwhelming sadness. In the city that was hit, we grieved. And we came together and grieved together.

For two years, we’d mark the anniversary in a quiet room where staff could reflect. Remarkably — and thankfully — for a staff of 300, nobody lost a friend or loved one in the WTC attacks. But you can’t say we weren’t marked. Even now people feel compelled to speak and share their story of 9/11, still struggling to make sense of the nonsensical, to understand a day that we never thought would happen — a day that never should have happened — a day that left a gaping hole in our city and a scar upon our souls.

© 2006 Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. All rights reserved.