The Day My World Turned To Soot: 9-11 Tribute Post
There's always a heaviness I feel around this day.
And I usually can't put my finger on it until memory triggers everything.
The memories are subtle, but they lead me back to one of the most soul-crushing days in modern American history.
It started with remembering my father's obsession with spirit photography in the mid- to late 1990s. He bought camera after camera of disposable cameras, different brands and sizes and shapes, to make sure he wasn't losing his mind.
You see, we went through a run of years where we would visit different Catholic shrines around New York, my parents were very devout Catholics, prayer circles and everything.
He would use every snap in that camera to take photos of the beautiful flowers, shrines, statues, and memorials to the Virgin Mary and the saints.
But there was one thing he could never shake, and I could never understand: the light beings that appeared next to the statues, what it meant, why they were there, and the different colors that they were. If we were crazy, if what we were seeing in the photos was real…
But I suppose that's another story.
September 11th always creeps up on me. In the most unsuspecting ways.
This year triggered the memory of my father's spirit photography and that connection with divine spirituality that I'll never forget, a memory we hold, a dual questioning of our sanity, only to end up with the same unanswered questions.
It reminded me of the many unanswered questions on the day the Twin Towers fell in New York City.
Because you see, my day ended with a similar phenomenon I could not understand, as I begged and cried and prayed on my knees in front of that statue of the Virgin Mary on 9/11.
Prayed that my parents weren't dead, that I can understand what was happening in my home, my state, my school. The people looked like little ants jumping from the smoking buildings until I realized what they were doing… jumping for their lives.
It was a pretty average Thursday in Forest Hill, Jamaica, Queens, New York, on September 11, 2001. I was 11 years old in sixth grade, in my very prim and proper Catholic school. You could see the towers and much of the cityscape perfectly from the window.
Although world history class and remembering dates hadn’t always been my strong suit, I always loved the stories, one of my favorite teachers taught the class, and frankly I loved being there - which was rare for a kid that had 2 meaningful friendships until the age of 14.
That Thursday felt like every other Thursday before, but it changed every other day to come.
It was subtle, quiet, and I can't remember if the principal came in and whispered to my teacher or if one of the school couriers delivered her a note, but I remember that the class paused.
Dead silent.
My teacher wheeled in one of those TV stands that used to hold the box TVs playing the news report of what was happening in New York City, Manhattan, the Big Apple, the only other home I'd known outside of the borough of Queens.
You see, I grew up in that city, my playground was the Empire State Building. In suite number 4321, Lopez and Associates, my parents’ business, a world-class travel agency, before 9/11 and the dot-com boom took them to bankruptcy.
Although my parents were a few city avenues away from the Twin Towers, I knew how close they were geographically and how important those buildings were.
Not understanding trauma at the time, I completely zoned out (dissociated.)
Classmates were crying.
Teachers were whispering to each other, trying to figure out what to do.
They ended up calling my grandmother and, at the time, my best friend's parents, who were our landlords in the two-family home that we shared with them.
Ever seen five families share a two-family home? I lived it.
It wasn't long before we were called to evacuate the school. I could understand verbally what was happening and what everyone was saying on the TV, I've always had a wide vocabulary and was a pretty smart kid, but I could not understand what that meant in practice. Or for my life.
At the time, I had a cell phone; when you grow up in a city like New York, you get those things a bit young.
All I understood was everyone around me was so upset, I kept trying to call my parents but couldn't even get their voicemail, it was completely cut off.
You see, while I traversed the classes of world history with sisters and nuns and wonderful teachers at my Catholic school, my parents traveled the city streets and subways to New York City every day, and I knew they were there. In the smoke, the flashing lights, the darkness, the soot that covered miles and miles and miles from the tower grounds...
I knew they probably weren't one of the ants I saw jumping out the window, but I also knew that I was stuck in this space in between, in oblivion... Catholics might call it purgatory, wondering where they were, if they were alive, if I would ever see them again.
My best friend's parents were kind. They kept all the kids in that five-family household safe and sheltered, but for some reason, I did not want to go to their floor with them, and I don't quite remember going anywhere.
I just remember ending up in our dining room, where my very Catholic parents had set up a beautiful shrine to the Virgin Mary, adorned with roses, a crown, flowers, holy water, prayer cards, rosary beads, and well wishes.
I remember seeing my mother and father pray there often, and they never forced me to pray, but I always felt quite comfortable in the Catholic Church and traditions (well, comfort... except the anti-gay part, and well, they still haven't quite come around to that. I was still a good Catholic girl....)
So what does a good Catholic girl do?
She goes to pray.
Hours felt like lifetimes, alternating between praying on my knees to the Virgin Mary, for their safety, their protection, that I would see them again, that they would come home, that everything from this really fucked up day would right itself.
I would catch glimpses of news updates from the television.
The entire city had gone black and all telecommunication services had stopped except for some of the outer boroughs like Queens where I was. At least, we could know what was happening from the news.
Just a little bit of the weight on my anxious chest released itself, knowing that they, like all the other New Yorkers that day, were just stuck trying to figure it all out.
The news was horrific, and I'd walked up and down Manhattan many times with my parents, but I'd never seen it like it looked on the television: gray, dusted like cigarette ash, dead.
It turns out those ants were people… hopeless… and I felt so bad for them, for the kids in my class whose parents worked near or at the towers, whose parents were firefighters or police, for so many of them whose community was already reported dead.
Maybe that's where my aversion to the news started.
In fact, I can't remember keeping up with the news much before that, it wasn't exactly enticing to a kid under 11. Afterwards, I never desired to see people dying again, so yeah, that's about when I tuned out of the news I suppose.
The afternoon passed quickly between stops at the television, visits from my caretakers, and prayers to the Virgin Mary. Day turned into night, and I couldn't figure out why they weren't home yet.
Why weren't they home yet?
My 11-year-old mind couldn't really grasp the distance between Manhattan and Queens, the rubbled streets they had to travel, the bridges they had to cross.
My mom trying to run home in her corporate stilettos, I couldn't imagine!
That day felt hopeless. I think we all felt that way.
But the darker it got, the brighter yellow the dining room lights became in the darkness, the harder I clutched my little hands together in front of Mary, the hopelessness grew and grew.
I was certain they were dead, they should have been home by now.
I started sobbing harder and more violently than I could remember.
I pleaded and cursed and prayed and angrily demanded that God answer me, I looked up at the statue. My knees were aching, and my mind, body, and spirit were so weary.
I locked my gaze with Mary's stone eyes and saw a single tear run down her cheek from her eye. Just like mine were.
I can't remember if I touched it or if I was just weirded out.
It wasn't the first miracle or spiritual experience I'd had (i.e., the spiritual photography with my father a couple years before that.)
But in that moment, I knew I wasn't alone. God, all His children, all His saints, and all His angels, are always with us in our hardest moments.
I don't know how long after I witnessed Mary crying that they came home, but I know it wasn't long after that.
My parents were exhausted, dirty, and speaking furiously with my caretakers, explaining what they'd experienced that day.
It's hazy, as dissociation runs rampant in my childhood memories.
My mom clutched her dirty heels, which she traded for dollar store flip-flops. She told me all the stores were closed. Everyone had evacuated. And everyone had to walk miles and miles and miles and miles home. I was glad that she was able to protect her feet, those heels always hurt her.
Although so many of you from different walks of life know me as having originated from New York, not very many of you have ever heard this story.
To this day, it makes me shake.
My tears well up, and I realize how embedded that experience is in every New Yorker and, I'm sure, beyond.
There's always a heaviness in the air when 9/11 comes.
It rumbles through my soul and my heart, but it is absolute proof and testament to me that we all have a purpose and that we are never alone, no matter how it seems.
He, she, it, God, Source, whatever you call it, is always with us.
I'll never forget the day our world turned to soot.
If I'm a little slow responding this week, know that there's a heaviness in me that's remained locked inside until this post.
Let's give each other grace.
If we haven't reacquainted ourselves in this current incarnation of time, it turns out I became quite the storyteller and publisher in the body, mind, and spirit healing space.
And whether or not you were in New York on 9/11, or what your background in religion, spirituality, or beyond is, I'd love to hear your story!
Comment below or reach out, and thank you for remembering one of the most important days that ever impacted my life.
With reverence,
