“One of the towers is falling.” The screams were clear but it made no sense. I grew up a kid from New Jersey and was now a college student in New York City. The Twin Towers were a part of my backdrop. My mom worked for the Port Authority of NY+NJ and I had met her there countless times for lunch. The World Trade Center was a common phrase in my house. What did they mean it was falling? That couldn’t be right.
And then I saw it. The cloud monster came battering through the other buildings, ferociously and quickly approaching ours like a tsunami. The smoke and dust were thick and heavy and my first reaction was to run away from my window because it seemed powerful enough to break through the glass. In an instant, the cloud had engulfed the perimeter of our dorm. I was a fish in a bowl, surrounded by ash, which was all that was left now of the first tower, and I felt small.
2 blocks from me on Fulton and Broadway.
Warning: not suitable for kids
So much of it is a blur. But I remember watching myself from the outside like I was watching a movie about a girl, a girl that wasn’t me… but it was. From outside my body, I kept wondering why this girl was still there, in a building, a few blocks away from what would later be called Ground Zero. She should leave the viewer kept thinking. Why is she still there? The viewer kept asking. But like that scary movie when you yell at the girl to Run! Get out! and wonder why she hasn’t had the sense to leave—you realize how hard it is to think when you’re in the middle of trauma. It’s so much easier seeing it from the outside. So many more options when you aren’t living it.
Slowly friends were leaving. I knew I couldn’t stay but I didn’t have the courage to go outside. What if the attacks kept coming? What if it wasn’t over? I tried calling my mom, reverting back to a child looking for her mom to tell her what to do, but the phones were out. When I did finally get through—hours later—the advice she could offer was to do what I thought was best.
My friend, Shauna, and I made a plan to leave. I say “plan” loosely because how do you plan leaving your home with no warning? I was wearing my favorite army green MUDD jeans and my favorite T-shirt. It had a butterfly on it and said CUBA. It had been my mother’s and it was thin from having worn it so many times. That was all I had. We didn’t take a thing when we left. If we needed to run for our lives it would be best to carry nothing.
William Street was a blanket of gray like fresh snow had fallen except it wasn’t snowing. Papers and ash lined the streets and fell from the sky where the towers had been. People scurrying, covering their mouths, crying. Everyone in dismay and shock. We were like zombies in an apocalypse, moving on automatic, trying to understand what just happened and how to survive at the same time.
Our walk from William Street to the Brooklyn Bridge wasn’t long, but those 5 blocks were the longest blocks of my life. I had had a dream about this a few months back, about New York City being under siege but I couldn’t remember if I had survived. I must have, right? Because people always wake up before they die.
The Brooklyn Bridge was saturated, full of people leaving a war zone. Manhattan was under attack and Brooklyn was the Promised Land.
Eighteen years later, I remember that feeling of terror and hope so distinctly. I swallowed my fear as best I could and mustered all the courage I had. I didn’t want to leave but I knew I had to. It wasn’t safe for us there. Getting to the other side of that bridge meant my life and I couldn’t get there fast enough. And it reminds me of something—refugees fleeing, a caravan of South Americans, people who will do what needs to get done to get to safety amidst the worst of circumstances.
I know the details are different but in the scape of humanity, it’s not. The difference is that Brooklyn didn’t turn me away. Brooklyn didn’t say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait up. I feel for your tragedy and I know you’re scared and coming from a war zone. I know shit must be pretty bad for you to have left but there just isn’t enough space in Brooklyn for all of us. I’m sorry. Thoughts and prayers.”
No. Brooklyn did not do that. We needed help and Brooklyn took us in. A line of people waited for us on the other side with water and hope. Someone put their arms around me and asked me if I was ok; I don’t remember what I said. I can’t remember if I fell to my knees or sat on a curb or if I cried. But I knew I was safe and that someone was coming for me. A school acquaintance whose family lived in Brooklyn was picking us up and taking us to his home. Shauna and I weren’t separated. If I remember correctly, we snuggled in a twin bed and took a nap together.
We were fed and sheltered until midnight when my mom was finally able to find a way into Brooklyn. Bridges and tunnels were closed but I knew she’d get to me and bring me home because that’s what moms do. They find a way to get their kids to safety, no matter what. If she had to swim across the Hudson, she’d have done it. She would have flung her body straight into the middle of that smoke cloud if it meant getting me out. I was 21 years old—not 6, not a baby—and she would have done whatever it took to deliver me from my hell to safety.
I know. It’s different. Manhattan and Brooklyn are both parts of New York and I’m from New Jersey… but it’s just an invisible line that divides us and isn’t that really what’s dividing the whole world? I tremble to think what it would have felt like if after what I had just lived through and what it took for me get there, they had turned me away. Where would I have gone? What would have happened to me?
Because, the point is, no one wakes up thinking This will be the day that everything changes. You never know when it will be you begging for grace and mercy from strangers.
Let’s hope the day never comes.
But if it does, will the grace you’ve shown to others be the grace you’d want others to show you? Would it be enough?
Thank you, Brooklyn.
To find a name on the memorial, visit the 9/11 Memorial site
