Two months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, I served with N.C. Baptists on Mission cleaning apartments contaminated with dust and debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center. We worked in apartments as close as overlooking the Trade Center site and some many blocks away. It was inconceivable that we were still removing dust on a third or fourth round of cleaning.
The morning of November 12 while we were cleaning in a building overlooking Ground Zero, we received word about the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Queens. The island of Manhattan had been completely shut down to the outside world; no one was being allowed to move on or off the island.
The immediate reaction was fear that there may be another attack afoot. When we walked out of the building for a lunch break, the streets of New York were silent. No cars, no blaring horns, no machinery, and barely any people. It was haunting.
We walked over to a hotel which had faced the World Trade Center, having been invited to go as credentialed volunteers helping with the cleanup. There was a huge red fabric tarp completely covering the side of the building that faced the towers. Every window on that side had been blown out.
We made our way up a few floors to a former meeting room that had been converted to provide respite to first responders and site workers. There were firefighters, police officers, EMS personnel, machinery operators, and others sitting in almost total silence watching news of the plane crash on television.
As a couple of us stood near a young police officer sitting in a recliner, he pointed to the screen, looked up at us, and said “I was supposed to fly that very same flight a couple of days ago.”
He had been planning a visit to his family in Dominican Republic when his plans got canceled at the last minute.
He went on to tell us that he was out of town when the planes hit the World Trade Center. He knew he would have been in those buildings with his colleagues otherwise.
“I dodged two bullets,” he said, turning his attention back to the screen.
We thanked him for all he was doing and made our way out of the room.
That young officer, with a mixture of guilt and relief from not being with his fellow officers in the Trade Center and feeling somber and reprieve over the plane crash, had been struck with a vital lesson in life: Life can change quickly and unexpectedly one way or the other.
I had personally experienced enough in life to that point that I knew it could turn on a dime. But the memory of that young man staring directly and simultaneously into both life and death changed me even still.
Life is wonderful, fun, and amazing. And life is troublesome, tragic, and frightening. Better seek the wonderful, the fun, and the amazing to every extent possible.
#NeverForget #September11 #WTC #lifewithpurpose