One Year Later, Ten Years Later

I'm tired of all the 9/11 talk and stories of firemen, and First Responders. I do not mean to deny their heroism, but there are other heroes, and heroines, in the aftermath of 9/11.

A year after 9/11, my son Ben and his wife Torrey had a six month old daughter, Sarah Kate. They were living in Denver then, having moved there after Ben graduated from medical school. Ben was doing his internship in the Emergency Room of Denver General.

On 9/11, Torrey was teaching 5th grade at PS 234, the elementary school next door to the World Trade Center. As happens in the first days of school after summer vacation, Torrey had the flu that day, and a substitute teacher took her class. Ben was doing a 6-week residency in Farmington, New Mexico, and driving to work when he heard about the planes flying into the Towers. He tried to call Torrey but couldn't reach her by cell phone or landline. So he called me, in California. He had to go to work; I could and did, spend the day trying to reach Torrey.

I finally found her at home, on the computer. She was OK and hadn't been at school that day.

But she spent the rest of that day and year, and really the last ten years, dealing with survivor's guilt. And she, like all the other teachers in PS234, dealt with the childrens' stories, their fears, their horrid memories of that day for the remainder of that year. The school, when it reopened two weeks later (?), opened in an old Catholic school, in the neighborhood. Three 5th grades had to meet in an old gymnasium. The class moved to a different place 3 times that year, trying to find a safe and secure place to meet.

Those children were ten years old then. Now they are twenty somethings. The memories that they wrote about that year, were the sights and sounds of the bodies falling from the sky as they were evacuated from their old school. And their relatives who died. I can't begin to understand the strength and courage that those teachers used to deal with the nightmarish lives of their kids that year. And the parents who were left.

The firemen who risked their futures working to clear debris and find remains are undoubtedly heroes. But so are the teachers, parents and children of PS234, who survived and have been dealing with the horrific memories of that day, for the last ten years. I hope they have found some measure of peace.