September 10, 2008

A Sky of Memories

The other morning dawned with a blue sky the color of that September morning seven years ago. It is a soft blue born of a humidless sky that is left from a great storm. It is like a corn flower blue or a robin's egg blue but not that soft. It brought back the memories and more.

The other evening I met many people at the English Speaking Union where Jim Dale read excerpts from Bikeman. He is a powerful reader which you can hear on the audio book. Afterwards, I spoke to many people most of whom talked about that day from a personal perspective. One woman worked at the Seaman's Institute not far from the site of the attack. She said she too recalls that it was "Less than night and less than day" as I recounted from my journey just a few blocks away after the tower fell.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting a woman in Chatham, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. Her brother was one of those killed in the attack. "We never found any of him to bury," she told me, "not even a finger nail."

But she recalled the goodness from the horrible days that followed. He had left behind a wife and family. What the pain must have been for them. In Bikeman, I speak of "Goodness that flourishes too." The sister whom I spoke to said that to this day, the goodness from then was greater than the pain. It came from neighbors and from the country at large. Some women in Georgia made a quilt for the surviving family and delivered it to them. How wonderful a memory is that. How great a gift.

So many people tell me stories that I want to stitch them all together for you to read.
There was the staff photographer for the Boston Globe who, in his Boston home, heard his wife scream while watching television on that morning. The first plane had just hit. This journalist's thought, like mine and so many others, was, "I have to get there to tell the story." But first, he thought, "I'm going to take a shower. I might not have another chance for a while." He drove to New York City but it was closed. It took him another day before he worked his way to ground zero which is remarkable.. The city was an armed camp those early days and no one could get in. He did. And the Globe's readers were able to see the devastation because of his and other's efforts.

After the event at the English Speaking Union the other night, my wife and I came home to our apartment in Greenwich Village. That morning which had started with the same blue sky of September 11th, now closed with the lights. For the first time this year, twin shafts of lights rose into the dark sky from Ground Zero where the towers once stood. The sky is filled with memories for me.

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