Going to see my cousin who works in Manhattan, as the anniversary of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks loomed again, talk was bound to turn to what it was like living through such a horrific day.
She and I have discussed it before. But being there, and getting stuck in traffic on a ramp to the George Washington Bridge on a bright blue-sky September morning much like that one in 2001, I couldn't help but wonder. What do you do when you're in gridlock with no way out and hear on the radio or see with your own eyes that the tallest buildings on the skyline are going down? And after that, how do you ever go back?
Having dinner with her and her good friend and coworker -- a man who has been like an uncle to her daughters -- I had to ask. To get to work, they take a morning train from the same town where they both live in New Jersey. Every day. They work in an office building near the old World Trade Center towers, their exit being the now infamous one under the Trade Center.
On Sept. 11, 2001, neither was on the train they normally took, the one that arrived at just before 9 a.m. (The first plane hit at 8:45, the first tower went down shortly after 10.) My cousin had a doctor's appointment that morning and planned to work later. Her friend was running late and missed that train. Instead, he caught a later one, which was then delayed until finally, transit officials sent it back.
Meanwhile, my cousin's daughter was in school, located across the street from where this friend lives. News of the attacks had circulated in school, but the magnitude was downplayed because so many parents work in New York. And her daughter knew of her mom's doctor's appointment, and that she was safe.
But when her daughter came out of school and saw her mother's car parked at the co-worker's house, she was beside herself, convinced her mother was there because he had died. He hadn't, though after it was over, seven people from their town had. My cousin explained that their identities emerged as they didn't claim their cars at the train station.
"That's how they realized who was missing -- their cars were still there," she said.
When they finally could go back to work, my cousin and her friend had to take three trains and then a ferry to get there until service was restored months later. I can't fathom ever going back, and said as much.
"You just do it," she said.
I guess you do. But observing the people of New York going about their business on a brilliant blue September morning last week -- rushing to the subway, walking their children to school, sitting in traffic -- I thought about the resiliency of people, and that, for the living, no matter how bad things get, it's one foot in front of the other until life becomes normal again.
But I am in awe of them all.
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