What hap­pened to us


On Sep­tem­ber 10, 2001, we got up ear­ly in our Tribeca apart­ment because it was the first day — only a half day, but still, the first day — of kinder­garten for Avery.

I pre­tend­ed to be as excit­ed as she and John were, as she bur­bled on about final­ly being in “real school,” about her new shoes, about final­ly, the next day, stay­ing in school to eat her lunch.

I, on the oth­er hand, had spent the entire sum­mer think­ing I was dying of some­thing.  Not sure what, but sure some­thing was dras­ti­cal­ly wrong with me, I haunt­ed doc­tors.  I went to my GP sev­er­al times, who promised me, “You’re fine, and even if you’re not, what­ev­er it is, we’ll fix it.”  From there I saw a gas­troen­terol­o­gist, an endocri­nol­o­gist and was about to see a neu­rol­o­gist when some­thing eye-open­ing hap­pened to me.  I picked up Avery at sum­mer camp one after­noon, and real­ized that all my symp­toms- a per­va­sive stom­ach-ache, slight tremor in my hands, rapid heart­beat- dis­ap­peared as soon as I had her hand in mine.  I went home, tore up the reminder for my appoint­ment with the neu­rol­o­gist, and set myself to the task of learn­ing to say good­bye to my lit­tle girl, to leave her at school like all oth­er par­ents leave chil­dren at school.  I was suf­fer­ing from pre-sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety, not a brain tumor.

That first half-day of school I felt like the world was com­ing to an end.  Since she was a baby, Avery had gone to “preschool,” a sweet lit­tle Montes­sori morn­ing activ­i­ty with her best friends Cici and Annabelle, try­ing to become social­ized, to let oth­er peo­ple talk, to share, all dif­fi­cult tasks for an adored only child both of whose par­ents turned instant­ly toward her the moment she opened her mouth.  I knew that all-day real school would be even bet­ter for her.  She had nev­er looked back for me when I left her at preschool, only turn­ing res­olute­ly toward her real life, hap­pi­ly leav­ing me behind.  I was the one with the problem.

John and I took her to school, or rather she took her­self, that first half-day of kinder­garten, bounc­ing down the side­walk with Cici, who lived in the same build­ing with us.  They could not have been more excit­ed.  She was so adorable, so pure and price­less, that we took lots of pho­tographs.  Here she is out­side the gate, wear­ing the spe­cial new out­fit she had planned for days.  Espe­cial­ly the beret.

And the red shoes, which made lit­tle clicky sounds on the side­walk as she skipped along.

Into the school she went.  I spent the morn­ing try­ing to think of what I was going to do with my year, what every par­ent thinks of as the year from Sep­tem­ber to June.  I had quit my teach­ing jobs the last year in order to write a book, and it was near­ly fin­ished, only wait­ing for muse­ums to give per­mis­sion to use their images.  It would keep me busy.

The half-day end­ed and I went to pick her up in the lit­tle con­crete school­yard sur­round­ed by the wrought-iron orna­men­tal fence, a fix­ture in our neigh­bor­hood.  It was a cov­et­ed school, that rare thing: a New York pub­lic school that was safe, sup­port­ed by par­ents, cozy and suc­cess­ful.  I was sur­round­ed by oth­er moth­ers, by fathers and nan­nies, wait­ing for the chil­dren.  The sky was dark with heavy clouds, the air so humid it pressed against our faces like a wet wash­cloth, tiny drops of rain began to sprin­kle onto our heads.  Sud­den­ly there was a CRACK, a shock­ing CRASH.  We all jumped a mile high, then looked sheep­ish­ly at each oth­er, laugh­ing at our sil­ly pan­ic, as the heav­ens opened and the after­noon dis­solved into a thunderstorm.

At last the doors opened: the big front door to the school where the old­er chil­dren came out, and the lit­tle red door onto the school­yard where the lit­tle ones were shep­herd­ed out by their lov­ing teach­ers.  And there she was.  “I LOVE Abby!  She is the nicest teacher!  And we col­ored, and we’re going to be study­ing chicks!  And how they turn into chick­ens!”  Avery’s words tum­bled over each oth­er as I picked her up, a feel­ing of deep relief show­er­ing me, low­er­ing my blood pres­sure, mak­ing me sigh with hap­pi­ness.  Every­thing was going to be FINE.  Why had I dread­ed school so much?  She had had a won­der­ful morning.

She was so earnest, so con­cerned about fit­ting in and doing the right things.

That night the clouds rolled out, the tem­per­a­ture dropped to a per­fect Sep­tem­ber nip.  The next morn­ing, the first full day of school, dawned famous­ly blue and per­fect.  I don’t have to describe it because it is its own cat­e­go­ry of day now, “a Sep­tem­ber 11 kind of day.”  It was the sec­ond day, so no more fan­cy clothes.  She put on a yel­low t‑shirt and a lit­tle full skirt with appliqued pink and orange fluffy flow­ers on it.  John did­n’t come with us.  Hav­ing his own life to attend to, he head­ed to work in Times Square and I head­ed down the three blocks between our apart­ment and the school, hand­ed her her lunch­box (Hel­lo Kit­ty), gave her a hug and kiss.  “See you at 3 o’clock!” I said, and watched her cavort­ing in the school­yard with the chil­dren who were already her friends.  We were ear­ly.  It was just after 8:30 a.m.

I caught up with a moth­er I rec­og­nized as hav­ing a lit­tle girl in kinder­garten, and we walked togeth­er uptown, she push­ing her lit­tle boy in a stroller.  “Jen, are you at all ner­vous or upset at Tova’s going to school all day?” I asked, feel­ing fool­ish but as usu­al want­i­ng to see if some­one else shared my experience.

Are you kid­ding, with this lit­tle guy to enter­tain all day?  I’m thrilled,” she said.  We went on chatting.

What?  What did you say?” I shouted.

I can’t hear you either,” she said, and as one per­son we looked up into the sky.  As we stood there, on the cor­ner of Duane and Green­wich, the school a block and a half away, a plane approached overhead.

Are planes allowed to fly that low in Man­hat­tan?” I shouted.

No!  And he’s head­ed straight ahead!  How can he not see where he’s going?”

He still has time to turn!” I shout­ed, as I strained to see what was to the right of what we now refer to as “the North Tow­er” or “Build­ing Num­ber 1” but what in those days was known by us locals sim­ply as “the World Trade Cen­ter.”  We hard­ly thought about there being two buildings.

He’s not turn­ing! Oh my God!”

And then I expe­ri­enced a trick of per­cep­tion that I thought about only lat­er.  First, time slowed down as I watched the air­plane sim­ply park itself into the build­ing, high above our heads.  In my per­cep­tion of that moment, there was no sound.  Despite the enor­mous, over­whelm­ing, ear-crush­ing explo­sion that was occur­ring before me, in my world, every­thing was silent.  The air­plane sim­ply silent­ly parked itself into the side of the build­ing.  And then there were flames.

The school!” Jen and I screamed togeth­er.  As we looked toward the school, the sev­er­al city blocks that sep­a­rat­ed it from the World Trade Cen­ter tele­scoped into noth­ing­ness.  There was just the show­er of flames, and direct­ly below, our school.

We ran, she awk­ward­ly pulling and push­ing the stroller.  “Oh my God, Oh my God,” we pant­ed over and over.  We reached the school; the school­yard with its red door was emp­ty, the gate locked.  We went to the big kids’ front door.  Par­ents were shout­ing and push­ing.  The pres­i­dent of the PTA, also on his first full day of school, blocked the entrance.  “Now hold on, the fire depart­ment is com­ing.  Every­thing will be tak­en care of.  The safest place for your chil­dren is in this school building.”

Get the f***k out of my way, I need my daugh­ter,” I said qui­et­ly, and he just as qui­et­ly stepped aside.  We rushed inside, look­ing for our chil­dren in a build­ing we weren’t very famil­iar with, had vis­it­ed only a cou­ple of times.  “Where are the kinder­garten rooms?” I asked some poor teacher who looked com­plete­ly shell-shocked.  “Avery is right in there,” she said imme­di­ate­ly, although I did­n’t rec­og­nize her.  I went in.  There were oth­er par­ents there and a fran­tic rush to find our children.

Then a real­iza­tion swept me.  I was the adult.  I was the par­ent.  I was not with peers with whom I could share my fear.  I was the one who had to look in con­trol, calm and adult.  It was the first and pos­si­bly only tru­ly ratio­nal thought I ever had, dur­ing the events of Sep­tem­ber 11.

Hi, Avery, there’s been an acci­dent out­side and we’re going home.  Where’s Cici?  She can come with us,” and then there was Cici’s father John, so we grabbed the girls and their lunch­box­es and head­ed down­stairs to the exit.  Once in the round brick rotun­da that held the wel­come desk, how­ev­er, we felt wracked with inde­ci­sion, so many par­ents and chil­dren, crowd­ing the small space.  “Should we leave?  Or would it just be bet­ter to leave things nor­mal?” we all won­dered aloud in var­i­ous ways.  Then came a ter­ri­ble sound, both deaf­en­ing and eeri­ly muf­fled by the round brick room in which we crowd­ed.  “What the hell…?”  We all looked at each oth­er with an inde­scrib­able com­bi­na­tion of fear, dread, unknow­ing, and yet know­ing.  The sec­ond build­ing had been hit, by what, we did not know.

We’re get­ting out of here,” I said and I car­ried Avery out.  Instant­ly I real­ized I need­ed to walk a cer­tain way, to hold her head against my shoul­der a cer­tain way so that she could not see what­ev­er was hap­pen­ing behind the school, in those build­ings four blocks away.  We emerged into the per­fect blue-sky day to find par­ents fran­ti­cal­ly shak­ing cell­phones which no longer worked (I did not even have a cell phone in those days), par­ents cry­ing, hold­ing onto each oth­er, par­ents vom­it­ing into the curbs.  I walked as quick­ly as I could toward home, three blocks away, uptown, away from the World Trade Center.

We arrived at home in silence, Avery some­how hav­ing divined not to ask ques­tions.  It was the first of the many moments after that day that she showed the sen­si­tiv­i­ty and matu­ri­ty that have become the hall­marks of her personality.

We sat, Cici’s moth­er Kath­leen and I, on the bench inside our apart­ment, hold­ing the girls’ lunch­box­es, then putting them down, then hold­ing each oth­er’s hands.  There was noth­ing to say.  The girls them­selves ran off to play, a bit con­fused as to the short­ened school day, but hap­py to be together.

Final­ly I said, “Do you remem­ber that time at din­ner once, when we all won­dered where the top of the spire of the build­ing would land, if it crashed down sideways?”

Yes.”

And we found out it would crash right through our bed­room windows.”

Yes.”

The ele­va­tor opened into our apart­ment and there was John, pant­i­ng, sweat­ing.  “I saw the sec­ond plane go in from Times Square, and got a cab down to 14th Street, then ran home from there.”  It was about 40 blocks.  Kath­leen’s hus­band John arrived and the two men went up to the build­ing’s roof, while Kath­leen and I took the girls up to her apart­ment, the sixth and top floor of our build­ing, and sat silent­ly togeth­er.  Sud­den­ly John and John shout­ed from the roof, “Oh my God, the build­ing is going.  We’re get­ting out of here.”  We grabbed the chil­dren — Cici and Avery and Cici’s lit­tle broth­er Noah — and rode down togeth­er in the ele­va­tor, emerg­ing into the ridicu­lous sun­shine to head uptown as fast as we rea­son­ably could.  A young lady emerged from nowhere, hold­ing a baby.  “I came out of our build­ing hold­ing the baby and now they won’t let me back in!  I need his food, and dia­pers!  I have no mon­ey, no house keys, noth­ing!”  “Come with us,” we all said, and scooped them up.

We walked, walked, walked until we came to Cici’s father’s office build­ing on Canal Street, and rode up in the ele­va­tor to his news­pa­per offices, which were teem­ing with reporters, this sort of thing being their rai­son d’e­tre, how­ev­er hor­ri­fy­ing at the time.  Every­one was on com­put­ers, on the phone, shout­ing, ges­tic­u­lat­ing.  We came in hold­ing the kids and head­ed toward an emp­ty con­fer­ence room, uncon­scious­ly, I think, look­ing for a room in the cen­ter of the build­ing, not at the perime­ters.  The room was dec­o­rat­ed with a pho­to­graph of the 1930s Man­hat­tan sky­line, dom­i­nat­ed by the Empire State Build­ing, look­ing down to a low, flat down­town.  “We’re back there, now, if the sec­ond build­ing falls down,” Kath­leen said.

And it did.  John was out­side in the dust, hav­ing begged me to let him go down to the site and help.  I shout­ed, “No!  Your place is here with us!”  I sim­ply could not con­tem­plate his going down to the site.  I had­n’t even begun to wor­ry about the air qual­i­ty, what he would breathe in if he went.  It just seemed unbear­ably ten­u­ous and unknown to let him go.  So he did­n’t.  To this day, every anniver­sary, he express­es his doubts about stay­ing with us, about not help­ing.  But I could not let him go down there.  So he was out buy­ing dia­pers and baby for­mu­la for the strange baby and lady in our midst, when the sec­ond build­ing fell.

I remem­ber stick­ing my head out the win­dow to look at the smol­der­ing, smok­ing sky­scraper one moment.  The next moment when I looked, it sim­ply was­n’t there any­more.  It sounds ridicu­lous­ly sim­plis­tic to say it that way, but that was how the day pro­gressed.  Build­ings sim­ply disappeared.

Then it was a blur, the rest of the day, imag­in­ing that the sky was full of oth­er plane-weapons, imag­in­ing oth­er tar­gets.  We heard there were sev­en­teen miss­ing planes, twen­ty miss­ing planes.  No one knew what to believe.  The chil­dren played near­by, obliv­i­ous.  I thought, “What were we think­ing, hav­ing a child in this world?  How dared we bring an inno­cent baby into this world.”  Our thoughts and fears turned to the most basic a per­son can have.  Months lat­er, John and I took some sort of online sur­vey about Post-Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der, then not real­ly a syn­drome com­mon enough to have an acronym, PTSD.  One ques­tion was, “Did you at any time dur­ing your expe­ri­ence fear for your life?”  It seemed unbe­liev­able that such ordi­nary, unre­mark­able peo­ple as we, on a blue-sky day in Tribeca, could answer, “Yes.”

John suc­cess­ful­ly bat­tled his way down to our apart­ment that after­noon, past the guards, the police and the mil­i­tary, and let him­self in to imme­di­ate­ly hear the buzzer, over and over.  There were police­ment and fire­men who had sur­vived, des­per­ate­ly seek­ing water, a bath­room, a moment of peace.  My moth­er remem­bers our telling her that one fire­man took a long drink of water, looked around our untouched apart­ment and said, “Bam­boo.  I’ve always want­ed to do a floor in bam­boo… I can’t believe I’m talk­ing about your floor, on a day like today.”  “We have to try to talk about things like that,” John assured him.  “That’s life.”

John came back up to get us on Canal Street and we all came home, crowd­ing into our apart­ment because, being me, there was food.  Every­one in the build­ing came, all five floors of us, plus the Lady and the Baby, as I think of them now.  And at some point in the evening, her hus­band appeared in the ele­va­tor, hav­ing walked all the way from LaGuardia air­port where he was strand­ed.  They went home.  The rest of us stayed, eat­ing meat­loaf, ribs, cream of some­thing soup, what­ev­er we had in the fridge.  And on that night, around our din­ing table, was born my most pow­er­ful amulet against the over­whelm­ing fear, the exis­ten­tial fear, that had been cre­at­ed that day.  What­ev­er hap­pened, it would be bet­ter if “every­one” were togeth­er.  From then on, I think, I’ve felt bet­ter the more peo­ple were gath­ered around my table.

That night no one, none of the adults, could sleep.  Because we had not let her see what was hap­pen­ing behind her school, because inter­mit­tent­ly for var­i­ous pow­er rea­sons we had no tele­vi­sion or com­put­er (and for some time after that, we delib­er­ate­ly kept her away from the tele­vi­sion), Avery was com­plete­ly shel­tered from what was occur­ring out­side her door.  Our street was the first above the dis­as­ter that retained elec­tric pow­er.  And so we stayed, through the unspeak­able night of the 11th.  I moved from our bed­room to the liv­ing room where I lay on the sofa, con­tem­plat­ing the unfath­omable wound in our beloved city, our cher­ished neigh­bor­hood, the loss of our secu­ri­ty, the loss of our school, the near-loss of my child, as I saw it.

The next day we all tried to live.  I remem­ber speak­ing to my best friend Alyssa on the phone; she was clean­ing out Annabelle’s clos­et.  Why on earth are you both­er­ing, I thought.  We won’t be alive long enough for you to care.  Lat­er that morn­ing I received an unbe­liev­able tele­phone call.  A dear friend of mine who had worked as art cura­tor for Can­tor Fitzger­ald, whose dead account­ed for 25% of those lost,  had been delayed in going to work on Sep­tem­ber 11.  Her alarm did­n’t go off.  She was still here, still with us.  Some­how her being saved only fright­ened me more; the ran­dom­ness was almost the worst.  “You won’t believe this,” she told me, “but a total­ly intact memo from Can­tor just float­ed into my back­yard.”  She lived in Brooklyn.

The neigh­bor­hood showed the scars.  An emp­ty space where the build­ings had been just blocks from our house.  I described it to Avery as “a big mess you’ll see at the end of the street, but they’ll clean it up.”

Our poor old local McDonald’s.

And box­es of fruit cov­ered in that tox­ic, mem­o­ry-and iden­ti­ty-laden dust we could not con­tem­plate, sim­ply had to live with.

I do not do well sleep­less.  By the morn­ing of the 13th it was clear that me sleep­less was not viable, and at the same time, our beloved friends Livia and Jan­ice in New Jer­sey had been beg­ging for us to come.  I called Alyssa, since we did not have a car.

We are head­ing out to Sea­cau­cus, so pack up those crazy cats and come with us.”

It was the work of a moment to pack the crazy cats up, throw some of Avery’s belong­ings in a suit­case, and head to Alyssa’s, two blocks up.  We squished every­one into her car, and drove toward the George Wash­ing­ton Bridge, pass­ing an extra­or­di­nary sight: hun­dreds of peo­ple, just ordi­nary peo­ple, lin­ing the divider between the uptown and down lanes of the West Side High­way.  They faced the lane going down­town, toward the site, and held up hand-let­tered signs read­ing “You’re our heroes, FDNY!”  “FIRE­MEN ARE ANGELS” “GOD BLESS THE USA”.

Alyssa’s dys­func­tion­al dog Sid­ney cow­ered on the floor of the front seat.  We all rode in silence, not look­ing behind us.  Then as we crossed the George Wash­ing­ton Bridge, we could not help our­selves.  We turned around.

The black and gray swirling cloud caused by the falling of the two tow­ers, pal­pa­ble on some ter­ri­ble Richter Scale, vis­i­ble from the Hub­ble Space tele­scope, loomed in the dis­tance downtown.

Where is our city?  Where is our neigh­bor­hood?  What has hap­pened to us?”  We all asked every­thing at the same time.

And at that very moment, every cat in the back of the car chose to behave as if there were a lit­ter­box back there.

Whew!  Oh my good­ness…” and then Sid­ney’s snout, too fear­ful to rise above seat lev­el nor­mal­ly, appeared like a lit­tle sub­ma­rine spot­ter.  “What on earth are those cats doing?”  It was a moment of hilar­i­ty we all need­ed, to sur­vive.  And yet when our car passed by groups of men play­ing golf in the New Jer­sey sun­shine, I was so angry I could hard­ly breathe.  How dared they?  Now I won­der if I dreamed that mem­o­ry.  Was any­one in the tri-state area real­ly play­ing golf on Sep­tem­ber 13?

We arrived at Livi­a’s and Jan­ice’s house and sim­ply col­lapsed in their arms.  Nev­er had their pris­tine, white, per­fect house in New Jer­sey seemed such a sanc­tu­ary.  We stayed until Sep­tem­ber 15.  I spoke on the tele­phone often with our fam­i­lies in the Mid­west who were wor­ried about us.  Avery rif­fled through Livi­a’s child­hood clos­ets to find the dolls she always played with there.  We drank far too much Scotch, stayed up until the wee hours of the morn­ing, try­ing to make sense of what had hap­pened.  Livia sat on the edge of my bed the first night, stroking my hand.  “I think our world is end­ed, Livvie,” I said.  She held me.  “It will come out all right, you know.  It always does.”  After a decent sleep, I felt bet­ter, but the resumed air­plane flights over­head after the sev­er­al days’ qui­et did not help.  Oth­er peo­ple cel­e­brat­ed the return of planes to the sky as a sign that nor­mal life was return­ing.  After my expe­ri­ence, planes in the sky did not feel nor­mal.  Even now, I have an instinc­tive draw­ing-back when I hear or see or feel an air­plane over­head.  I am quite cer­tain that that reac­tion will last all my life.

On Sep­tem­ber 15 we went home.  The neigh­bor­hood had pulled togeth­er, as we short­ly real­ized was just in our neigh­bor­hood’s nature.  I will nev­er again live in a place of such human warmth, gen­eros­i­ty and com­mon love.  We had two Roc­co’s: Roc­co of our beloved Bazz­ini’s, the ancient nut and cof­fee com­pa­ny on our cor­ner, put up a love­ly sign say­ing many sim­ple, reas­sur­ing things, among them, “We will rise above this and emerge stronger and clos­er than ever.”  Roc­co of our beloved “Roc” Restau­rant sim­ply brought his kitchen out to the side­walk and fed us all, fire­men, police­men, news­peo­ple.  Those of us who knew him who lived there in our streets with his restau­rant, paid every­thing we had on us, in thanks for the love and sustenance.

On Sep­tem­ber 19, a week and a day after the events, Avery went back to school.  Her school, our beloved PS 234, had been req­ui­si­tioned by FEMA and was occu­pied not with school­child­ren but with box­es of size 11 boots and fire­coats, clip­boards and rapid-response telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions units of some kind.  We pre­pared Avery for the “new school” which was in fact going to be a very old school, PS 41, already over­crowd­ed and now set to wel­come an extra 50% of stu­dents from the evac­u­at­ed stu­dents from all over low­er Manhattan.

Before we took her to school, I sat Avery down and asked her what she knew about what had hap­pened.  For bet­ter or worse, our joint parental deci­sion had been to keep the tele­vi­sion off, no news­pa­pers, mag­a­zines, and no dis­cus­sion of what had hap­pened until she was in bed.  But we could not let her go to school with both her old class­mates and dozens of new, strange chil­dren, with no knowl­edge of the events.

Avery, with her char­ac­ter­is­tic intense dig­ni­ty and per­son­al ret­i­cence, even at just four years old, said, “I know the World Trade Cen­ter is gone, because you told me.  What hap­pened to it?”

A plane flew into it and start­ed a huge fire, and then it col­lapsed.  Now they’re clean­ing it all up before they can build some­thing new there.”

A pause, then Avery said, “But weren’t there TWO buildings?”

Yes.  And there were two planes.”

Anoth­er pause, then she said, frown­ing, “That begins to sound like not an accident.”

No, it was­n’t an acci­dent.  Some very evil peo­ple who were told to hate our coun­try flew the planes into the build­ings deliberately.”

Why would any­one hate our country?”

Because we are very free to do and say what we please, and we are hap­py and suc­cess­ful.  That makes some peo­ple very angry and some of those peo­ple decid­ed to hurt us.”

I think it’s just ter­ri­ble,” Avery said with the final­i­ty of the young.  “I bet some peo­ple died.”

Yes, some peo­ple did.  But the whole world is sor­ry for us and most of the peo­ple in the world think our coun­try is very good.  And we must con­cen­trate on that.”

If I had been anx­ious about drop­ping her off at school 8 days before, my anx­i­ety lev­el was now at a com­plete­ly unliv­able lev­el.  I had the crazy idea that the ter­ror­ists has tar­get­ed our neigh­bor­hood, pos­si­bly our school, and the World Trade Cen­ter was only a con­ve­nient place to park the air­planes.  What if they fol­lowed us to the new school?  As we wait­ed out­side to let the chil­dren in, I felt a fear inside me that I sim­ply could not believe was real.  We had dressed Avery in her Fourth of July dress, too small but still sweet.  It had a small Amer­i­can flag smocked in the front.

She seemed far too small and vul­ner­a­ble to be left alone at yet anoth­er school.

Her hair rib­bons were red, white and blue check.

It seemed unbe­liev­able to me that I was meant to leave her there, a block from the hos­pi­tal where the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies had expect­ed to find their wound­ed loved ones and had left end­less row upon row of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion posters.

We walked our chil­dren into the impos­si­bly crowd­ed school with har­ried teach­ers run­ning to and fro.  Avery seemed fine about being there, and I was at least mature enough to real­ize that what­ev­er prob­lems there were about leav­ing her there were mine, not hers, so John went to work and I left the class­room, wan­dered out into the hall­way.  There I lit­er­al­ly ran into the school psy­chol­o­gist, Dr Bruce Arnold, whose job had sure­ly become about 1000% per­cent more dif­fi­cult than he had expect­ed on Sep­tem­ber 10.  “I think there’s some­thing wrong with me, Dr Arnold,” I said, try­ing unsuc­cess­ful­ly not to begin cry­ing.  “I real­ly don’t want to leave her here.”

There isn’t any­thing wrong with you that isn’t wrong with all of us,” he said.  “And you don’t have to leave.  Stay as long as you like.”

In the end I sim­ply sat in the school cafe­te­ria with oth­er par­ents who did­n’t feel like leav­ing, and John told me lat­er that he got as far as the front steps of the school and then sat down and cried.  It was very hard work being “nor­mal.”

We strug­gled through the days being “nor­mal” for Avery, cook­ing and eat­ing and chat­ting and tak­ing her to dance class.  Our school was moved once more, in Octo­ber, to share a sweet — but tiny — school called St Bernard’s in the West Vil­lage, where at least instead of 75 chil­dren per class there were 45.  Yet anoth­er “first day of school.”  They began to seem end­less and I felt flat­tened by the pres­sure to get past the secu­ri­ty cor­dons that iso­lat­ed down­town, to get Avery uptown in time for school to begin, try to fill my day, then get uptown to bring her home.  The school put up a tem­po­rary wel­come “label” for us, and the beloved bronze frog that used to sit at the front door of the real PS 234 came with us, for the duration.

Often Kath­leen, Cici’s moth­er, and I walked home togeth­er in the morn­ings, dis­cov­er­ing that we felt much the same: reluc­tant to go down into the sub­way, but unwill­ing NOT to go down into the sub­way, wor­ried about the air we were breath­ing at home but unwill­ing to join the mil­i­tant group of par­ents who were cer­tain we were all sign­ing our death war­rants by stay­ing downtown.

Oh, those ter­ri­ble end­less meet­ings in the dark cafe­te­ria at St Bernard’s, lis­ten­ing to per­fect­ly nor­mal peo­ple turn loopy and hos­tile, accus­ing oth­er par­ents of being crim­i­nal­ly neg­li­gent for even THINK­ING we would ever return to PS 234 and its tox­ic air.  And yet these same par­ents picked up their kids every day at St Bernard’s and went home to their apart­ments just as close to the site as the school was.  No one was ratio­nal.  We all seemed to find our own ways both to be crazy, and to cope. Ish.

The anthrax threats came.  We toyed with the idea of stock­pil­ing things: antibi­otics, duct tape, water.  It all seemed so ludi­crous, so rash and ran­dom and life-threat­en­ing­ly sil­ly that in the end we did noth­ing.  And because life goes on, Avery’s Novem­ber birth­day came and both our sets of par­ents came too, to sup­port New York and us, to get in an air­plane and defy fear.

Avery was in her ele­ment, sur­round­ed by the girls she had played with since she was born, con­fi­dent and seem­ing­ly untouched by any­thing that had hap­pened to her.

There were bal­loons, car­ried home as always from the Bal­loon Saloon by John’s dad, only this time just buy­ing bal­loons was tan­ta­mount to a polit­i­cal act.  “Thank you SO MUCH for com­ing and buy­ing your bal­loons again this year.  We are real­ly strug­gling here,” said the plump and fun­ny own­er of the shop.  Every­thing we bought, we bought down­town, try­ing to save our neighborhood.

Roc­co came, bear­ing a lit­tle fuch­sia bead­ed purse for Avery.  Roc­co who had been so wise, one after­noon as I stood on the cor­ner where his restau­rant was, look­ing down at the school, past the FEMA emer­gency bound­ary tape.  He put his arm around me and said firm­ly, “You aren’t doing any­one any good stand­ing here feel­ing sad, Kris­ten.  It will all turn out all right.  Go home.  Go home and be a mommy.”

We began to recov­er, bit by bit.  I cried every day, at some point in the day, or at many points in the day, for months.  Every­thing seemed, as one of my favorite authors once wrote, “like the last train leav­ing the sta­tion.”  Every morn­ing when I dropped Avery off at school, I imag­ined nev­er see­ing her again, expect­ed nev­er to see her again, and every after­noon at pick­up I felt my life had been saved.  The most last­ing lega­cy of Sep­tem­ber 11 for me is that a bit of this feel­ing has lin­gered to this day; say­ing good­bye to my daugh­ter and say­ing hel­lo again will always feel apoc­a­lyp­tic to me.

While it’s all well and good to live each day as if it could be your last, it’s exhaust­ing.  It’s not nor­mal.  Human life depends on a cer­tain casu­al­ness of spir­it, some­times, and that ele­ment of our lives was miss­ing for a very long time, after Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.  For me, it would require going back to PS 234 to become nor­mal again…

And we did.  Fol­low us here.

55 Responses

  1. John's Mom says:

    So many peo­ple sol­dier­ing on …

  2. A Work in Progress says:

    Ok, you have GOT to pub­lish this, some­where with a wider audi­ence than your blog (though I still can­not under­stand why your blog does­n’t have thou­sands of fol­low­ers — spe­cial as it makes me). So mov­ing, so well-observed. Real­ly, it is a gor­geous essay. I have nev­er felt that per­son­al­ly invest­ed in 9–11, but this gets me close.

  3. Amy Schaller says:

    What a beau­ti­ful­ly-writ­ten sto­ry, Kris­ten! I’ve heard bits and pieces from you over the years, but I was fas­ci­nat­ed by the whole nar­ra­tive. (And I of course loved the pic­tures of lit­tle Avery!)

  4. Sheri Riley says:

    Wow, Kris­ten. I have been shak­en by this anniver­sary but had no idea how this had impact­ed you (and many oth­er of my Man­hat­tan friends.) Thank you for writ­ing this incred­i­ble nar­ra­tive with such vivid descrip­tions of your raw emo­tions, your love for your daugh­ter and the incred­i­ble spir­it of your friends and neighbors.

  5. Lynda Harker says:

    I had time today to take a moment and read (real­ly could­n’t resist read­ing about that cute lit­tle girl in the pic and was pret­ty sure I’d relate to the sto­ry of send­ing your child to the first day of kinder­gar­den) and even though I cried through most of it (because your incred­i­ble tal­ent for writ­ing Kris­ten, enables the read­er to total­ly empathize, right along beside you, with the thoughts and emo­tions you were expe­ri­enc­ing and just what it was you were wit­ness­ing) I fin­ished it to the end and just want­ed to tell you that first, just like your friend from Can­tor Fitzger­ald, I feel incred­i­bly grate­ful that you all survived.
    Sec­ond, I am relieved to know that your instincts are such that you and your hus­band were capa­ble of mak­ing some very good deci­sions (I shut­ter to think what could have hap­pened had John gone down to that site) in the midst of your world lit­er­al­ly crum­bling down around you.
    When I was very young, we lived over a flight pat­tern in Ind­pls and I was ter­ri­fied by the sound of those planes. I’d run for the house every time I’d hear one com­ing. I’ve got­ten over that, as an adult, thank God…but I total­ly relate to that part of the sto­ry as well…lol
    Thank you for shar­ing this with us. I did not know that I knew some­one who had come so close that day. That’s one excep­tion­al sto­ry of what a par­ent goes through on the first day of kinder­gar­den!) Oh, and I devel­oped a bit of a crush on Roc­co. lol
    I will be pay­ing bet­ter atten­tion to this blog! Very, very impres­sive. (please for­give my writ­ing skills..lol…wow!!)

  6. Rebecca Cohen says:

    Kris­ten, what a riv­et­ing and mov­ing essay. Your writ­ing is effort­less and nat­ur­al, and paints such a per­son­al expe­ri­ence of that day. Thanks for shar­ing it. I agree that you should pub­lish it.

    PS what a gor­geous lit­tle doll Avery was (and is)!

  7. Kathleen says:

    Kris­ten,
    I sit here with tears in my eyes. Thank you for putting
    “our” expe­ri­ence into words. You wrote my life too!
    It explains so much of what was going on to me.
    Not hav­ing tal­ent with words can leave one speechless.
    Thank you, thank you, thank you.…
    Katheen

  8. FIONA RIVAZ says:

    Thank you for shar­ing this with us. Sophie & I just sat togeth­er & read it. We are so pleased that you sur­vived the events of that ter­ri­ble day and are here in Lon­don with us. I think every­one must remem­ber clear­ly where they were & those hor­ri­ble images, but most of us saw it through the pro­tec­tion of a TV screen. Lots of love to you all & I too am pleased that you would­n’t let John go back down­town. xx

  9. Jo says:

    OH Kris­ten this is an incred­i­ble writ­ten jour­ney through the night­mare that was 9/11 — I can­not imag­ine how you were able to keep going amidst such chaos, let alone take lit­tle Avery back to school after it hap­pened. Such touch­ing pic­tures of her wear­ing her USA col­ors — I think we all wore some­thing — I had a lit­tle safe­ty pin that had been made into a flag with red/white/blue beads arranged just so. It’s hard­er to believe that ten years have passed as our mem­o­ries of that day are so acute that it just feels much more immediate…
    I“m glad you’re back safe and sound — and can’t wait for my hugs when we get togeth­er — Love, Jo

  10. Bonnie says:

    Thank YOU for shar­ing that incred­i­ble sto­ry. It def­i­nite­ly should be pub­lished for a larg­er audience.

  11. C harlotte says:

    I strug­gled with my own anx­i­ety as I read this..heart pal­pi­ta­tions, tight­ness in my chest, rapid heart rate… you know, that feel­ing that you get when you fear that some­thing bad is going to hap­pen, which of course it did. I rememem­ber every­thing about that day and even that week as I too strug­gled with my own fear of doom, so many miles away in Ft Wayne, In. I can not imag­ine hav­ing a pre­cious child so close to the sit­u­a­tion and need­ing to run to her as fas as you can to save her. You feared for your­selves but you feared for your child, which is the worst fear a moth­er could ever face. It is no won­der that you expe­ri­enced PTSD symptoms. 

    9–11 not only changed the world, but it changed lives, whether you lost some­one or not. It also changed how we view the world. For me it was the lack of safe­ty, the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Gone was the naive sense that we were pro­tect­ed by our US big par­ent, the gov­ern­ment, the mil­i­tary, the police. They were as help­less as any of us. How even more help­less you all felt being right there wit­ness­ing it all. 

    Your first had account was one of faci­na­tion and heart­break. Thank you for shar­ing it with us. I would love to hear more. I will be think­ing of you on Sun­day as our church has a spe­cial 9–11 memo­r­i­al service.

  12. Kris Burbank says:

    So many 9/11 sto­ries, and you have cap­tured yours beau­ti­ful­ly here. Thanks for shar­ing and for car­ing enough to put into words what is painful and scary and dif­fi­cult to relive, I’m sure. Yes, you should pub­lish it some­where. But just giv­ing it to peo­ple here to read is such a gift. Thank you, Kristen.

  13. Anne Nelson says:

    This piece of writ­ing is so eloquent. 

    And this week every­one who was in the city a decade ago is bound togeth­er in mem­o­ry, wher­ev­er we find our­selves today.

  14. Sheilah Mullins says:

    Beau­ti­ful — Thank you for shar­ing those very per­son­al moments

  15. Anna Randall says:

    Kristin, I don’t know what to say that is any dif­fer­ent from oth­er posts. I knew much of this because of your mom in law, but to read it first hand like this is so pow­er­ful, words can­not express. I con­tin­ue to adore your blog. I hope your read­er­ship advances to the lev­el your tal­ent deserves. Warm thoughts and hugs, Anna

  16. Elizabeth Richards says:

    I think you utter­ly and com­plete­ly nailed it.

    The place where the tears fell for me was when you talk about it being bet­ter if every­one were around your table. That is an arti­cle of faith in my lit­tle fam­i­ly too — we are bet­ter when we’re togeth­er; around the table with food is where we are safe and at home, alive and hap­py and most ourselves.

    Pub­lish it. I’m going to share it. X Elizabeth

  17. Elizabeth Ellis says:

    What a beau­ti­ful­ly ren­dered account. Thank you for describ­ing both the pre­cise details of 9/11 as you lived it and your under­stand­ing ten years lat­er of its mean­ing for your sense of self, fam­i­ly and place. I watched the Tow­ers fall on tele­vi­sion from the dis­tance of Paris and wait­ed des­per­ate­ly to hear about fam­i­ly and friends who worked there — but I know lit­tle about 9/11 as a dev­as­tat­ing local event, as an attack on a neigh­bor­hood of schools and shops, chil­dren and par­ents. What I find real­ly com­pelling is how much worked: there was pow­er and water and roads to dri­ve on; the schools reopened; busi­ness went on. Per­haps this is where the per­son­al becomes polit­i­cal. And so as I read your mem­oir, I am filled with hope, because you and your neigh­bor­hood reclaimed your lives and car­ried on. xx

  18. Kris­ten~ I had to read this in pieces. It was a very well writ­ten, although very dif­fi­cult post for me to read. I start­ed it last evening, but as I was at work, and tears filled my eyes, I knew I could not fin­ish it. The high school girls I was work­ing with would wor­ry see­ing me upset. I as every­one else have my own, mem­o­ries & strug­gles with 9/11. I have often chose to remem­ber this date as Grand­ma Kit­ty’s birth­date. My cousin & her hus­band both worked in the trade cen­ters. They sur­vived. But lost dozens of friends. IT changed them for­ev­er. It changed me. My cous­in’s hus­band is an alco­holic now. My cousin is bit­ter and in a mar­riage she can not stand. She is often cold and very pro­tec­tive of her chil­dren (she was car­ry­ing the twins on that awful day ).
    Kris­ten~ your sto­ry is remark­able.. I admire your courage to write this.
    I am strug­gling with this anniversary…
    I would love per­mis­sion to link your blog, this post in my lit­tle blog. I cant think of a bet­ter thing to post to hon­or those we lost. Your strength is beautiful.
    ps~ love you dear lit­tle camp fire sister♥

  19. Kathleen's Mom says:

    Thank you. My heart is both heavy for what you, Kath­leen and so many oth­ers went through but hap­py, very hap­py for the outcome.

  20. Victoria Jackson says:

    Yes Kristin you have to pub­lish this. I was cry­ing while read­ing this! I’m so sor­ry we live in a world where this was your expe­ri­ence on Avery’s 2nd day of Kindergarten.
    Glad you all are here and healthy to speak of your experience!

  21. min says:

    Oh Kris­ten,
    I nev­er real­ized were sto­ries of that day had so many par­al­lels. We lived on Fran­kln Street until 2004. I was on Greewn­which and Cham­bers at the time the first plane went in after drop­ping my 3 yr old son off at pre school on War­ren Street. I too have no mem­o­ry of the sound, I just remem­ber turn­ing toward the Trade Cen­ter and see­ing the plane go in–like watch­ing a silent movie. We too spent a sur­re­al day under blue skies at Carmine Street Park on Hud­son after being told to go above Canal and shared din­ner with many friends and neigh­bors after walk­ing back into our neigh­bood that evening. Love, fear, hor­ror, gratitude–so many dif­fer­ent dif­fer­ent feel­ing coursed through me that day and for months after­ward. It all come back to me this time of year.
    You write beau­ti­ful­ly and I hope it was as cathar­tic for you to share your expe­ri­ence as it was for me to read it.
    Thank you
    Min

  22. kristen says:

    Every­one: I don’t know where to begin to thank you for your respons­es. I am hap­py and ful­filled beyond words that our expe­ri­ences have been in any way impor­tant for you all as we strug­gle with the anniver­sary… I am hum­bled by your responses.

    Janis, of course post a link. I am so sor­ry for your fam­i­ly’s loss­es. Min, I too had no idea we were so close. Heart­felt hap­pi­ness we are all still well.

  23. Saundra says:

    Wow Kris­ten, I’m so glad you were able to put this in writ­ing, I’m sure very painful reliv­ing it all again, as you do every year at this time. But this is help­ful to those of us that were just watch­ing it all on TV, to know how hor­ri­ble it was for even the aver­age bystander to have to live day to day through this incon­ceiv­able event. It helps us to under­stand … thank you for shar­ing. So glad it turned out the way it did for your fam­i­ly and community.

  24. Jennifer Purdy says:

    Kris­ten, you and I were togeth­er that day. I still can­not believe that we actu­al­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a con­ver­sa­tion about the air­plane before it flew into the build­ing. I remem­ber think­ing that it would pass, that it was just an illu­sion. The way you describe the moment is so right, and so pal­pa­ble. It brought the feel­ings instant­ly to the sur­face. We have rarely been in the same city since then, but every year on it’s anniver­sary, we con­tact one anoth­er — we are for­ev­er con­nect­ed in this sad, remark­able moment in his­to­ry. Much love.

  25. Mom says:

    It does­n’t seem like ten years ago when I was ter­ri­fied at not being able to reach you — since moth­ers nev­er stop wor­ry­ing about their chil­dren, no mat­ter how old they are — and you called and said “Mom, I’m OK, but oh, Mom, I saw it. I saw the plane fly into the North Tow­er!” Your elo­quent writ­ings bring it all back so sad­ly and painful­ly that for the first time since that awful day I find myself cry­ing, self­ish­ly, that you are still here to tell the sto­ry. Much love to you, John and dar­ling Aves.

    Mom

  26. Todd Adkins says:

    Bra­vo Kris­ten! Won­der­ful­ly writ­ten piece. Thank you for being so won­der­ful­ly trans­par­ent in shar­ing your sto­ry. Like oth­ers, I now feel a greater con­nect­ed­ness to the event hav­ing lived it through your words. Glad y’all were kept safe on that fate­ful day!

    Loves ya!

    Todd

  27. Sarah Clark-Thatch says:

    Kris­ten, this was beau­ti­ful! Prayers are with you love! 

    Sarah

  28. Dave says:

    Kris­ten: Friends of Stacey and Roc­co here. You real­ly cap­tured what was going on in the day to day life in Tribeca and what hap­pened at 9/11. Thank you for this. It’s a bad mem­o­ry, but a mem­o­ry that you’ve resur­faced with grace and heart.

    Dave

  29. kristen says:

    Jen, yes, we are for­ev­er con­nect­ed. I’m so glad it was you I was stand­ing next to. Mom, what a love­ly thing to say… we’re awful­ly glad to be here still! Todd and Sarah, thanks, old friends. And Dave, please give Stacey and Roc­co our love. They were so impor­tant to us.

  30. Cathy Sussman says:

    John asked me if I’d read your blog link. I had­n’t. I saw the email. Even tried unsuc­cess­ful­ly to open it on my iPad while on the plane home.

    Between school start­ing, my trip to New York Wednes­day, Boston Thurs­day, meet­ing with the cater­er for Ellen’s Bat Mitz­vah Thurs­day night and the triv­ial day-to-day detri­tus, I sim­ply hadn’t. 

    I just fin­ished and I feel frozen. Your descrip­tion of that tene­brous, hor­rid day … well I felt like the Mariner’s wed­ding guest, “I can­not chuse but hear”. 

    Kris­ten, you write so well. I want­ed to say “beau­ti­ful descrip­tion”. But that day was not beau­ti­ful. So I did­n’t. But I do feel that you’ve put on paper the inef­fa­ble. I believe, not just that it should be pub­lished, that is obvi­ous to any­one who reads it, but an urgent need to share it. To share your depic­tion of the day the world stopped.

    You have a gift. The gift of con­nect­ed­ness. The way that you brought five floors and a lady with a baby togeth­er for din­ner in the midst of great tragedy, by shar­ing this very per­son­al account you are heal­ing all of us. Thank you.

    Love to you, John and Avery.

  31. Lindsey Wragg says:

    I read this look­ing at my three daugh­ters and remem­ber­ing how I stopped in my tracks in the mid­dle of IKEA on the after­noon of Sept 11 2001, looked at my then 2 daugh­ters asleep in their dou­ble bug­gy as I over­heard a shocked con­ver­sa­tion next to me and thought ‘What have I done bring­ing these chil­dren into this world?’ almost exact­ly the sen­ti­ments you felt.
    In the name of a god? I don’t think so. I have not real­ly watched the news since 2001 I can­not fath­om how we can be so cru­el to each oth­er. But your sto­ries of the comm­raderie and sense of com­mu­ni­ty do restore faith in human kindness.
    Thanks

  32. kristen says:

    Cathy and Lind­say, I am very pleased — although that is an odd way to put it — to have res­onat­ed with you. This post has been a real jour­ney for me, to get it out, rather than “in.” Thank you.

  33. Kim says:

    Hi Kris­ten, wow! I knew you had been per­son­al­ly affect­ed by 9/11, but I had no idea it was quite in this way. I can’t imag­ine hav­ing some­thing like this hap­pen on the sec­ond day of kinder­garten. Just, wow. 

    Thank you for shar­ing. It must have been dif­fi­cult to put it all down, and try to get it “right” to express exact­ly how you felt.

    I was in Lon­don on 9/11. At that moment, I was sit­ting on the sofa with an infant Corinne, feed­ing her. Of course I switched on the TV — a fringe ben­e­fit of breast-feed­ing is day­time tel­ly-watch­ing, right? It was full of footage of the first plane hit­ting, and spec­u­la­tion on what had hap­pened. I rang Mau­ra (of the Din­ner and Read­ing lists, who was liv­ing in Lon­don then, too) to ask if she knew about it, so she turned on her TV. We were sit­ting on the phone togeth­er, watch­ing the moment the sec­ond plane hit. It was just so sur­re­al to realise it WAS­N’T an acci­dent, and the US, my coun­try, was under attack, and I was only watch­ing it on TV from far away. Mau­ra and I sat on the phone for quite awhile that day, not even talk­ing, just watch­ing the cov­er­age together.

    Amer­i­cans I knew here had dif­fer­ent reac­tions in the fol­low­ing weeks and months. One cou­ple and their child (one of Sask­i­a’s tod­dler play­mates) picked up and moved rather quick­ly BACK to Man­hat­tan in a show of love and sup­port for their home city. The events left me feel­ing alien­at­ed — I nev­er felt so “Amer­i­can in Lon­don” as I did in the months fol­low­ing 9/11, yet I was­n’t part of the col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence in the US. I also became slight­ly para­noid of being an Amer­i­can abroad (obvi­ous­ly, every­one hates us, I thought), and wished I could hide my and Sask­i­a’s accents, because if peo­ple on the streets knew we were Amer­i­can, maybe we would be in dan­ger. Crazy.

    We have all healed in our own ways. I’m pret­ty loud on the streets these days. And the Kris­ten I know, from 10 years lat­er, is full of joy, life, and inter­est in the world. So, well done to you for find­ing a way to sur­vive and thrive and share it with us all.

  34. kristen says:

    Kim, how inter­est­ing to hear about your expe­ri­ences with Mau­ra… it must have been VERY hard to be an expat. But yes, we have all risen above what­ev­er fears we had then, I think. I DO enjoy life! That’s a good les­son, because at times it did­n’t seem like that devel­op­ment would ever take place. Thank you for being part of it.

  35. Cousin Barb says:

    Kris­ten, I knew if I asked to read about your expe­ri­ences that you would­n’t dis­ap­point. Your writ­ing is so excep­tion­al­ly elo­quent, and I am able to “be there” with you, when­ev­er you write. I love read­ing any­thing you write..yes, you must pub­lish this.
    I was in OKC on the day of the Mur­rah Fed­er­al Build­ing bomb­ing, FEEL­ING the bomb go off in the office where I sat 9 miles away. Then on the radio, we heard that they were request­ing all doc­tors and nurs­es go down­town to help with the wound­ed. As in NYC, they were expect­ing hun­dreds of injured peo­ple, but, sad­ly, pri­mar­i­ly all they found were the dead. I sat with a friend in the Emer­gency Dept at one of the down­town hos­pi­tals, but few more ever came. The few who were brought in were not severe­ly injured. I sat at home for 2 days feel­ing numb. The nurse who was killed as she tried to enter the build­ing to help was a friend of mine. How­ev­er, she was sup­posed to be work­ing with a spe­cif­ic emer­gency group, and she entered the build­ing on her own — with no hard hat. Any­way, OKC’s dis­as­ter was­n’t near­ly as dev­as­tat­ing as 9/11. Still it’s some­thing that will remain in my heart and mind for­ev­er, as this will for you.

  36. kristen says:

    Oh Barb, how har­row­ing for you. I am not sur­prised to hear that you rushed to help. Yes, these are expe­ri­ences that shape us and remain in there, to be remem­bered. Much love.

  37. camille says:

    Loved read­ing this — brought back so many mem­o­ries of that day — my son was in PS234 Kinder­garten (Alexan­der) — we left after 9/11 and returned in Feb. 2002 — after the first plane hit — I was still at the gate and I ran into Alex­i’s class and grabbed him- I was out of there — I had lived in Spain for many years and knew that this was a ter­ror attack that most like­ly would come in two parts ‑any­way glad to find your writing!!

  38. kristen says:

    Thank you, Camille, did we know each oth­er at 234?

  39. camille says:

    My son was not in Abby’s class so we may not have had much con­tact — but I remem­ber the name Avery — Alexi (also my much adored only child) was in Mari­a’s class with Thomas and anoth­er Alexan­der and I remem­ber a girl named Bamboo…some twins.. I also vol­un­teered for many things — that was actu­al­ly a dif­fi­cult year — I could not take liv­ing down­town — I was too anx­ious after 9/11 and moved to qui­et NJ and put my son in a Wal­dorf school -

  40. kristen says:

    Camille! I remem­ber Bam­bou. And per­haps it was Jack and Ava the twins? I’m so glad you found a way to cope.

  41. Mindi says:

    So pow­er­ful. I found your blog post from a com­ment you made about the Ara­pa­hoe CO school shoot­ing and hap­py to have read it. (tears though…the tears!)

  42. Elizabeth says:

    Hi Kris­ten,

    I came across your blog through the luck of Google while search­ing for pho­tos of my old alma mater, PS 234! 

    Hav­ing grown up in Tribeca, attend­ed both St. Bernards and 234, lived through Sept 11th a few blocks from you, and just returned from sev­er­al years liv­ing in Lon­don, I felt such a sense of cama­raderie and strange serendip­i­ty read­ing your words. Thank you so much for shar­ing your expe­ri­ence and for so deft­ly express­ing the hor­ror, grief, pas­sion, and resilience of Tribeca at that time!

  43. kristen says:

    Hi Eliz­a­beth — gosh, your words are answer to my ques­tion every time I post a post — is it worth the effort? What were you doing in Lon­don, where are you now? What were your expe­ri­ences on Sep­tem­ber 11? I am con­sumed with won­der. But most­ly, thank you for read­ing and telling me that it meant some­thing to read.

  44. Beth Squires says:

    Thank you, thank you, that is all I have to say at the moment. I so appre­ci­ate you shar­ing your expe­ri­ence. In Indi­ana I was expe­ri­enc­ing it on TV, but your account above, is immense­ly help­ful — thank you…

  45. Shelley says:

    Each time I have read this, a lump wells up in my throat. There are nev­er words, just the lump.

    Thank you for your heart Kristen.

  46. Nancy Osman says:

    Thanks for your poignant and mov­ing mem­o­ries. I still can’t go to that neigh­bor­hood. A dear friend of mine was involved in plan­ning, build­ing and oper­a­tions at the Trade Cen­ter. So I had a chance to stand on top of the build­ing even before it was framed in. Many mem­o­ries of Win­dows — the restau­rant on top. And the sad­ness and hor­ror of watch­ing my very young grand­son build tow­ers with blocks and smash them with a toy airplane.

  1. September 12, 2011

    […] (click here to read of what hap­pened to us on the day of the events)  Print This Post […]

  2. September 12, 2013

    […] chase away the rainy blues, and to keep at bay the bit of melan­choly that always dogs me on this anniver­sary of Sep­tem­ber 11, I set­tled down in the kitchen this after­noon to make my fool­proof (the fool being me) ally, […]

  3. January 6, 2014

    […] Cici’s moth­er fed us a beau­ti­ful eggy, sausagey brunch dish and we fam­i­lies caught up with our busy lives as best we could in a short cou­ple of hours, try­ing to hear everyone’s news in entire­ly too lit­tle time.  How to squash the lives of three very accom­plished kids — an aspir­ing polit­i­cal his­to­rian (Avery), visu­al artist and film­maker (Cici) and pro­fes­sional ten­nis play­er (seri­ously, Noah) into one morn­ing was impos­si­ble, but ter­ri­bly touch­ing, and nos­tal­gic, think­ing back to our long his­tory together. […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.