My Experience of 9/11

I have lots to tell about my continuing Irish Journey, but my mind keeps wandering to another journey I took ten years ago. It was just about this time of year in 2001 that I was flying across country to visit a cousin in La Jolla. During the weekend I attended a spiritual conference with British teacher Tony Parsons. And then it was on to the Marriot Marina in San Diego for a health care conference. As I was flying over the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon en route to California, I remember thinking to myself that someday I would love to drive across country. Five days later I was doing just that, driving with three colleagues from New York State on a journey across America in the wake of the devastating events of 9/11.

I remember awakening that Monday morning, 6:30 a.m. West Coast time and calling back to my office at Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca. I had a number of things I wanted to ask my assistant to do that day. When Mary picked up the phone and I started in on my list, she stopped me. "You haven't heard, have you?" I hadn't heard the news she was about share with me, about the plane crash into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. I was stunned. “I’ll call you back", I told her, and slowly hung up the phone, picked up the remote and switched on the TV. I could hardly believe my eyes. I was looking at live coverage of the first of the two Twin Towers, a blaze, with black smoke pouring from the windows at the highest floors. I was hardly taking this surreal imagine in, understanding that a plane had flown into the building, when I watched with horror as the second tower was hit and then heard the news of the attack on the Pentagon, and of a plane downed in Pennsylvania by its passengers to avoid further devastation in our nation's capital.

I sat with tears in my eyes and the need to connect with my precious dad was overwhelming. I knew he would not know, that he would be working away at his computer and never have turned the TV on that early in the morning. I moved out on the balcony of my hotel room, which overlooked the San Diego Bay. As I called home I was stunned at the sight of US Naval warships circling the bay. Once I had shared the news with my dad, I promised to call him back to let him know my plans for getting home. With all flights cancelled I had to figure out my options. I could go back to my cousin's in La Jolla, but I immediately came up with another idea. I would go to the lobby and find Jeannie Cross, the VP for the Health Association for New York State and we would drive home, across country. We were both attending this health care marketing conference with 1,100 other healthcare PR and marketing executives and everyone would be stranded since by now all airports had been shut down in hopes of averting further catastrophe.

Minutes later as I stepped off the elevator there stood Jeannie. I told her what I thought, that we should drive home, and she wholeheartedly agreed. It turns out that she already had a rental car in her possession and it was not due back until for a few more days. We would call the rental company en route. Jeannie was ready to leave immediately but I was not sure if we might find pandemonium on the highways and so I suggested that we wait a day and to get a sense of what was happening. We also determined that we should pull the whole New York contingent together to see if others wanted to drive home. There were fifteen people from all parts of the state, many from New York City or neighboring counties and two rental cars between us. While few were ready to make a decision about getting back, Jeannie and I were determined and soon found two other women, from Adirondack Medical Center who were willing to accompany us in our trip. It turns out that Jeannie, Cheryl and Paula had all left their cars at the Albany airport and it was going to be easy to drop me off near Ithaca. We were all set, but Cheryl had one stipulation for making the trip - we had to make a stop in the Grand Canyon.

On Tuesday, September 12, at Noon, the trunk was packed, excess luggage mailed home, and with Jeannie's golf clubs loaded into the center space between the seats and off we went, towards the Grand Canyon. We soon had the whole trip down to a science. On the way out of San Diego we had stopped at AAA to pick up trip tickets,maps, and tourist books for the states we would pass through. We decided to take turns driving and that we would each pay for a tank of gas every fourth stop and a hotel room every other night. The roommate decision was based on who was high maintenance and who was low maintenance. The criteria was simply based on who wore makeup and who didn't. Cheryl and I were the high maintenance roommates, Paula and Jeannie, the low maintenance. Our first night was spent in Sedoma. We had traveled through the mountains in the dark and had no real understanding of where we were until we work up in the morning to spectacular views of looming red rocks and crisp mountain air. It was magnificent.

After a hardy breakfast,(and by the way it did take Cheryl and I a bit longer to get ready than Jeannie and Paula, but we were not really high maintenance), we were off to the Grand Canyon. What an amazing time to view the Grand Canyon, to be in a place that is quintessential America. It was a very profound and spiritual experience, to stand on the brim when having only days viewed it from 30,000 feet above the world wonder that had triggered my desire to drive across the country. We spent a half day there, much of the time in contemplative reflection, before continuing our cross country trip. It took a total of four and a half days.

I remember so much of the details of this journey but here are some that are most vivid. This was a trip filled with humor and with many sobering and profound moments. The car was often filled with conversation and laughter, as well as tears and deep silences when we each slid into our own moments of solitude. Cheryl told us not too far into the journey that her son was a New York State Trooper from the Adirondack Mountains, and that he was being sent with other upstate officers to patrol in New York City. That was a scary thought. I remember thinking how amazing Jeannie was, calm and focused as we made our way across Old Route 66. She was part of the administrative team of the Health Association of New York State, the PR person, and she was unavailable to help, while the HANYS team manned a phone bank and coordinated much of the medical goods shipped to New York docks. They were never used. I remember that all hospitals in New York State were put on alert by the health department, ready to take patients, but sadly, none came. It must have been hard on Jeannie not to be there in such a time of import and need. She went with the flow.

That flow was for me, in the drive itself. I can't remember how many states we travelled through, though I did manage to sleep through the Texas Panhandle. What I remember is that this trip towards the East Coast was one with no boundaries, but rather diverse and changing terrain. It was a trip through mountains, deserts and prairie lands, vast farmlands, and rolling hills. It was a continuum, diversity in the landscapes and also in the cultural attitudes and dialects of the people we encountered along the way. America is so vast and so diverse in so many ways.

During the day, unless we could listen to NPR, we stopped listening to local radio programs. It only took a short time before we began to hear anti-Muslim sentiments coming from callers to local talk shows and from some of the hosts and comentators. It was appalling and upsetting. No, it was outrageous.

But mostly we encountered very nice people who were somehow no longer strangers. As Americans we now had something in common that we didn't have just four or five days before. We shared the horror of the events of 9/11 and everywhere you traveled there was a growing patriotism that probably had not been so evident for more than a generation. For a moment we did stand united. No one was untouched by the events of September 11, 2001. It wasn't six degrees of separation, it was one. If you didn't know someone who had perished in the attacks of that day, you had a friend of a colleague who did. At one stop along the way we met a couple whose future daughter-in-law had died in the downed plane in Pennsylvania. Every day, each of us talked on the phone with friends and family to make certain everyone was okay.

One other memory stands out; we were four women traveling for hours at a time in a mid-size car. The seats were soft and it was not long before I could feel my lower back going. I managed to keep it in place by using the used AAA booklets as support under my spine. I also remember that the closer we got to home the older we became! By Ohio, we were all so stiff from sitting, that we could hardly get out of the car.

The last evening of the trip was spent in Erie, Pennsylvania. As we traveled on route 79 E that evening, we watched a falling star in the distance. It seemed a sign for each of us that we had come to the end of a shared journey, safe and sound. We were the only ones at the conference from New York State who chose to drive home. The others found alternative ways. We got a call as we neared Erie from two New York City colleagues. They had just arrived home after a 60 hour Greyhound Bus ride. I am green thinking of it. I just can’t imagine how agonizing that ride must have been, both physically and emotionally.

The next day we arrived in Elmira, New York, at a Duncan Donuts, what is more American than that? My dad, who lived with me in Ithaca, was waiting with his usual loving warmth and great humor, to greet us all. I was so happy to see him. I was so happy to almost be home. In ten days time I had gone across the country and back. In ten days time life as we all knew it, had changed. In ten days’ time I had a new first-hand perspective of the United States from the air and now from on the ground. I was very happy to be home among family and friends and I know this was also true for my wonderful traveling companions. I will never forget them or the journey we shared, the funny, profound, and heartfelt moments. We were perfect companions for a most imperfect time.

Love from Glocca Morra, Marsha