After 9/11

by Helaina Hovitz

  My mother’s birthday, you’ll recall, is June 11, and we convinced her to leave the apartment to have lunch so we could celebrate, just a little, even though it didn’t feel like a day for celebrating. We walked over to Front Street and ate sandwiches and pasta at an Italian restaurant where, of course, my dad knew the owner, and some other restaurant owners had dropped by in time to sing “Happy Birthday” and clank their knives against glasses.

  As we ate cake, I noticed a big bug, some awful creature with a zillion legs crawling up the side of the wall.

  I called the waiter over, who gingerly scooped it up in a napkin and walked outside with it. We watched out the window as he tried once, twice, three times to transfer the bug from a napkin onto a small pine tree. He thought he had gotten it on the third time, but on the way back in, he began to crumple up the napkin—with the bug still crawling on it.

  “Shh … don’t tell him,” my mom said, giggling.

  At 4:30 a.m. the next day, we got the call.

  It was officially June 12, which meant that Grandma had honored my aunt’s request, to wait until after Mom’s birthday had passed. Grandma had held out for twelve hours longer than the forty-eight hours they projected, defying, as she always had, every doctor’s prognosis, leaving on her own terms.

  The wake was on Monday, a cloudy day with the occasional few needle-pricks of noncommittal rain. We kept the casket open just for us, just for the family, because she wouldn’t have wanted other people to see her that way. I thought she looked beautiful, though, wearing the sparkly, glamorous dress she had worn to my mother’s wedding, one that had been made by hand with special beads just for her. I recognized it from the pictures.

  Father Jim came, the same priest who had Baptized me and given me my first Communion, and said a few words. Then, he prompted me to get up and read the words I’d written, which made everyone cry all over again. When my dad tried to give him a check, he first shooed it away, saying it wasn’t necessary, and when my dad said, “Please,” Father Jim said, “Okay, put it in the book,” and shut the Bible around it.

  The funeral director was over an hour late to bring her to the cemetery. Like my grandpa, she had requested not to be buried in the ground, but above it. My father, mother, Lee, and I drove past the rows of graves up there in the Bronx until we parked right behind Aunt Fran and Uncle John, in front of a wall covered in marble markings. It was like an outdoor morgue, but with coffins and flowers.

  There was a hole in the wall about five spaces up from the ground, right next to my grandfather’s stone, which had been engraved with his name. A green curtain covering the opening she would go into, and a small crane had been positioned underneath it. The funeral director said a few words, and we each held a flower. We tucked our roses into the coffin, and, for the first time on that cloudy day, the sun broke through the clouds. She was loaded onto this mechanical lift, up onto the wall, slowly, to the sound of beep, beep, beep, like a tow truck backing up.

  Then, the sun disappeared again.

  It wasn’t until we were driving back to the city that I realized.

  You are my sunshine.

  After we turned the lights off to go to sleep, I said to Lee, in the darkness, “You know how I always look for the good in situations? How I’ve always been able to look back at really bad stuff and think, ‘Here’s the good thing that came out of it?’ I’ve never been able to do that with what happened to my grandma. It was just so much suffering.”

  Lee turned on his side to face me.

  “From what you’ve told me, it seems like the more painful it was to be there, the more often you were there. You found ways to comfort her and to get past your own hurt to help comfort someone else.”

  “I guess …” I said.

  “I think that made you a softer, gentler person, one you probably wouldn’t have become to the extent that you did. And, if she weren’t as sick, you may not have been so diligent about being around all the time.”

  I reached over to pick up Wiley, setting him down on my chest so that his wet nose poked right up against mine. He wiggled up even further, so that his tiny head nestled right into the space between my neck and my shoulder.

  Wiley is our rescue dog, a chubby, tan and white little Chihuahua mix whose body gets warm quickly and emits the faint smell of corn chips after he’s been laying down for a while. He has been like my shadow, attached to my hip ever since we first picked him up from his third home in two years. Initially, he was found as a stray in Oklahoma, taken in by the rescue president, flown to the East Coast to be fostered in Brooklyn, then adopted out to this family, who decided that, after a year, they had dog allergies.

  Wiley stopped shaking within a few minutes of getting in the car with me, Lee, and my father. After taking a huge dump the second he hit the sidewalk, Wiley let us lead him inside, and he hopped onto the couch. We hopped on with him. He situated himself so that he was sitting on both of our laps at once. Picking up the tip sheet they gave us about helping rescue dogs adjust, I read, “He may be afraid of your newspaper, shoe, anything else that maybe have been used to ‘teach’ him things.”

  It could have, hypothetically, been a banana that he was hit with, and nobody would have known why he would start whimpering at the sight of a simple banana.

  Whatever it may have been, there was a time, hypothetically, that he couldn’t protect himself, and couldn’t escape. Only he would ever really know what those triggers were. Lucky for Wiley, with love, patience, proper medical treatment, he got a chance at a second life. A group of people rallied around him and said, “Your little life matters this much.”

  He loves to be tucked in and smooshed by our bodies. If we aren’t around, he will build a tiny fortress with blankets and pillows. He just wants to feel protected, held by a warm presence, in a way that I think all of us do. Despite all that he’s been through, he still trusts that I won’t let anything happen to him, that I won’t leave him, which is why he no longer cries when we leave the house. His favorite place is right between my legs, occupying the space between the “V” they make when they fall open. It’s the same protective cocoon I used to build myself when I was a toddler, wiggling my way in and moving my mom’s shins around, hooking one on each leg, even when she started to protest that I was “getting too big for that.”

  Wiley, like other dogs saved from the worst conditions, was able to transform almost entirely.

  In this way, dogs like Wiley aren’t so different from us.

  * * *

  Four years after my initial round of interviews, I met back up with some of my former classmates again to find out how they were doing.

  Christine was working at a community and youth organization in New York, helping kids have a better chance at success despite the circumstances they’re born into. Sarah, too, had become a teacher, but for college kids.

  Greg was back at his parents’ house in the West Village working on his music in the basement by night and on film production by day. He had tried his hand at alcohol recovery himself, but had found psychedelic drugs to be helpful, so did not choose the path of total sobriety. He eventually met a therapist he found helpful, Dr. Ken, who he said accepted him no matter what he thought or said, and showed him compassion. Greg still struggles with the concept of feeling safe, but has found comfort staying close to some of his old friends from I.S.89.

  Charles got his Master’s Degree in Design and Urban Ecologies from The New School, a program that focused on finding the medium between public policy, urban intervention, and social involvement. He has been working as a photo editor and a freelance cartographer, and was on the team that created the first digital map of New York City’s Urban Renewal Plans, which had been on display at the Queens Museum in 2015.

  Syd had tried his hand at being an EMT while living up in Nyack, something that gave him hope and purpose. He liked the adrenaline rush of being the first on the scene. That all ended one day when he had to actually hold a woman’s face together. A y
ear later, he was riding his bike when a man in a car hit him and drove off, leaving him hospitalized with a concussion and unable to recall most of his memories for months. He went on to find a job as an IT consultant in Battery Park, the first job he actually liked. He, like Greg, swears by the power of psychedelic drugs, which he maintains helped him get past his own “mental blocks.”

  “How has the drinking been?” I asked.

  “I usually only have one, if at all,” he said.

  “How about the weed?”

  “Much better. An eighth used to last me a day, now it lasts at least two weeks.”

  Thomas and I were reunited for the first time in twelve years when we met for dinner in midtown, and I was blown away when I pulled back from our hug. That mousy, quiet kid showed up in a tailored suit, very much a grown-up, nursing one single gin and tonic through the entire meal. His dog, Eddie, made it to age fourteen, even though he developed cancer, which the vet believed to be caused by his exposure to the attacks. He lived a happy life until then.

  “Christine and I went to the top of One World Trade Center yesterday,” he said.

  “How was that?”

  “It felt like the most safe and the most dangerous place in the world at the same time.”

  “Do you feel like you’ve pretty much been out of the woods, living in Florida?”

  “It’s better than being in New York. This would be a rough go for me, I think. I’m not good in crowds. But, I still struggle with anxiety. I’m always on edge. I walk into my office and think, how would I get out if something happened, and I don’t think anyone else is thinking about that. I’m always in that mindset, even if I don’t need to be.”

  “And you never went to therapy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I didn’t want to have to relive that day again.”

  “You’re telling me you haven’t relived that day since then?”

  “In my mind, almost every day. But I don’t want to talk about it out loud.”

  Michael and I decided to meet on a rainy afternoon two days before Christmas, at a coffee shop on Bleecker Street. He was much taller than I remembered, and had grown out his hair and a mustache.

  “Four years!” I exclaimed as we settled into our seats.

  “Has it really been four years?” he asked.

  “Yep. The last time we talked was right after bin Laden was killed. I remember, because I remember how you said that you thought death was easy, so torture was better, this way he’d have to suffer.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right. I think I thought his death would bring some sort of closure, but it hasn’t. Nothing is going to change what he did.”

  Shortly after we’d last met in 2011, Michael moved to Bangkok to teach English as a Second Language for two years, then moved to Las Vegas to teach fifth grade there, after he heard about the teaching shortage.

  “The work is good for me,” he said, sipping his green tea. “Kids at that age are brutally honest. It keeps me busy, but it’s not stressful. There’s not a lot of overwhelming pressure on me.”

  He told me about how he had given his kids an article to read about children in Africa, one that mentions PTSD.

  “I was shocked at how the kids responded. I had never seen so much class participation. One girl got in a car accident with her grandmother. Other kids said they were scared when they heard gunshots at night, wondering if they were going to be okay. Violence is a big problem in Las Vegas. This was the first time I got them so interested in talking.”

  “What about you, do you still experience any of the things you were struggling with back in high school?”

  “Actually, when I got back here from Thailand, I started having panic attacks. But then when I went to Vegas, it stopped. Now, they’re starting again. It even happened in a bar a couple of weeks ago. It was just too crowded.”

  “Have you seen anyone about it?”

  “I saw an ad on the subway for the 9/11 Health Fund, so I called them. I had to call the guidance counselor from I.S. 89 to get the paperwork, and they did a physical screening of me, and a psychological screening. The woman who interviewed me said, ‘It’s probably PTSD, so we’ll say it is, this way you qualify for free services.’ I haven’t pursued it yet, though.”

  “How come?”

  “I think I’m doing okay now. If it happens again I know I can call. I haven’t heard from them or anything.”

  “Do you know what the symptoms of PTSD actually are? Has anyone explained it to you?”

  He paused, took another long sip of tea, and looked out the window at the rain collecting in small puddles.

  “You know what, not really. I was having nightmares when I got back to New York after Bangkok, I’ve been more fearful of bad things happening. I had a lot of trouble sleeping, and when I slept, I would have these wild nightmares that stayed with me during the day.”

  “That sounds really rough,” I said.

  “This might sound crazy, but sometimes I feel like I’m in the movie Final Destination, always narrowly escaping death. Two days after I left Bangkok, this building was bombed, a place that I ate lunch across the street from every day. Two days ago, there was a car accident on the most populated strip of Las Vegas—that woman who drove her car onto the sidewalk and injured thirty-seven people. I’m there all the time. That could have been me.”

  “How has the drinking been? I know you had a couple of incidents in high school,” I said.

  “In college I drank more, but it wasn’t because of the depression or anything. It’s because everyone was binge drinking. It was fun, to escape. I still drink. I choose to get drunk, if I want to. I stopped smoking weed eight months ago.”

  “That’s great,” I said, toasting the air with my Winter Tea Latte. “I’ve been sober four years myself.”

  “Wow, that’s awesome. Yeah … I mean, there were times I thought I was an alcoholic, but then I could go long enough without drinking to prove to myself that I wasn’t, like a couple of weeks.”

  * * *

  I considered myself pretty lucky that Lee didn’t really drink. He did, socially, before he met me, but realized that he “kind of dug” living the sober life with me, save for a very occasional beer or glass of wine. As we filed into the cocktail hour at Columbia University for his coworker’s wedding, I recognized a familiar face. The last time I saw Lacey, one of his coworker’s dates, she was at a bar in Brooklyn drinking seltzer.

  “You look so familiar!” I declared when we were introduced. When I noticed it was seltzer, I said, in a voice so only she could hear, “Maybe that’s where I know you from,” and winked.

  Now, I was sidling up to the bar to order a Pellegrino, catching Lacey’s eye and making some comment about how it was a “good year.”

  But when I looked at her glass, I saw that she definitely wasn’t drinking Pellegrino.

  I cleared my throat and started chatting with the woman standing next to me at the bar. Behind me, I could overhear Lee saying, “We go to a restaurant, she makes friends with the waiter, and they go have coffee. She joins a gym, and the next day, all of the trainers are standing in a circle listening to her tell a funny story….”

  I smiled to myself and look back at Lacey, feeling odd about being the only one in the room with insider information. This is not going to be good. I could have called shot for shot what unfolded in front of me that night; the third glass, the fourth glass, the sloppy way Lacey literally hung on her date during the speeches, the way she completely face-planted at the end of the night on the dance floor. As Lee and I looked out over the skyline, watching it turn from indigo blue to a near black as the night went on, I felt grounded, like we were solid, as everyone else slowly started to lose their inhibition around us.

  As I stared out the cab window on the way home, passing the Apollo Theater and holding Lee’s hand, I thought about what it meant to go home with a clear head. I thought about how glad I was that I w
ent to the wedding, even though I didn’t want to. When you have friends, and a family, and a career, you go to things you don’t want to go to. That’s what you did when you wanted to keep them all. You got to stand there in your own skin and socialize with people who were not potential adversaries, but potential friends.

  Epilogue

  So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

  —Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

  At some point I will sit across from Dr. J and tell her that I feel like I felt when I was eighteen again.

  “It’s all too much. My body and my brain are just saying ‘We’ve had it.’ I’m edgy and I’m down, I’m nervous and I can’t sleep, and it’s been two months. For ten weeks, actually, I’ve been put on and off of these medications to try and prevent the migraines, and they’re giving me all these hormonal side effects and changing my mood, and I’m supposed to wait for my body to ‘adjust’ and it doesn’t seem to. So now I’ve discontinued it, and I’m still out of balance because now my body’s adjusting to that.”

  This calm person I’ve been for the greater part of two solid years, this wise-minded adult who could always turn to the actions that brought her back to balance when the stress of life becomes a little too much—yoga, exercise, bubble baths, helping someone else, meditating, calling friends, calling people in my network—would once more become overpowered by medications.

  “But you’re not eighteen again. You have to catch yourself in these moments and take five minutes. Just five minutes to deep breathe,” Dr. J will say. “This is a lot for anyone.”