Blurred images of destruction and hope

The clippings are tucked haphazardly between the covers of the blue folder buried in my “to be filed” pile. They tell of twisted metal and bowed heads, grieving families and flag-draped coffins. How dare I label their contents? Disaster? Ground Zero? World Trade Center? 9-11? How do you alphabetize “9-11?” How do I file away the hope that walked hand in hand with horror through the city that never sleeps?

At first, it was unfathomable. How could this happen? After all, this is America. Indeed, what had happened? I didn’t know the code for the remote control so couldn’t turn on the television, and the radio voices sounded so confused. What was going on? And, as a mother tends to respond, “Where are my kids? Are they safe?” It’s kind of funny now, but almost immediately I wondered, “Are my Salvation Army blouses washed? Maybe I should go home and wash them so I’ll be ready.” With a newly-minted degree in counseling, I was on the list of emotional and spiritual caregivers available to respond to the needs of those who were suffering such tremendous loss and I wanted to be ready.

My worries about the uniform blouses were a bit premature, for it wasn’t until the third round of responders were scheduled that our phone rang. Larry and I were asked to go together to New York at the end of September, just about 3 weeks after the towers were destroyed. We were to report to Salvation Army headquarters on 14th Street in Manhattan for assignment, not sure what we’d be doing – but glad to finally be doing something. As Philip Yancey later wrote, like most Americans, we too “felt unbearably helpless, and wounded and deeply sad.”

We traveled I-80 into New Jersey and finally across the bridge to Manhattan, expectant yet apprehensive. Reporting to the Salvation Army headquarters on 14th St., we were ready to serve wherever needed. I wrote to record our experiences each night after stumbling into our tiny hotel room, exhausted in body and spirit from the sights and sounds of the days. I wanted to help my Canton neighbors gain a sense of what was happening at Ground Zero, and so I sent my fledgling newspaper columns back each night to the Canton Repository. Reading them over this week as I paged through my folder, I was quickly thrust back to those days of uncertainty.

The images nearly leap from the pages. The rifle-wielding Guardsman standing at the toll booth of the George Washington Bridge. The sight of the city skyline, the Empire State Building abandoned by her twin sisters of lower Manhattan. The military checkpoints were oppressive, and the empty streets eerie. I wasn’t prepared for the totality of the devastation. Not only were the towers gone, but many other buildings were in ruins.

The hush that swept through the tents outside the Medical Examiner’s office when an ambulance bore its tragic burden to the priest for the last rites and final salute is captured forever in my memory. And the smell – even three weeks after the attack, the air was still heavy with smoke and the acrid odor of destruction. It was a horror to be sure.

Yet as we served at the morgue and the Worth Street one-stop social service center, we also discovered images of hope. The neighborhood fire stations were lined with makeshift altars of flowers and pictures. Letters from children all over the world hung from Salvation Army and Red Cross canteens. Our trio of Salvation Army officers sang of the limitless grace of God during the Catholic Mass. Hope was still alive.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since the towers fell, although it seems a lifetime ago as well. The news clippings are fading and the accounts of 9-11 will soon be reserved for the history books - or websites. Will we mark this date at year twenty-five or fifty? How will we remember the assault on our country and our ensuing helplessness when the scraps of paper in blue folders turn to dust?

Remember, we whisper, as we tell the story once again. On September 11, 2001 . . .