My husband and I lived on W. 85th Street when the World Trade Center towers collapsed and witnessed the horror from our office windows with our wailing colleagues. I learned that my brother, a firefighter just seven blocks from the WTC (the same brother whose daughter was married on Saturday), was alive before all communication ceased and I huddled around a car parked on Fifth Avenue with the radio blaring news of the Pentagon attack and possible impending attacks on the White House.
We mistakenly took the Belt Parkway and BQE Sunday, past Coney Island's Wonder Wheel, the Statue of Liberty, and sailboats with spinnakers billowing, and emerged into Manhattan from the Battery Tunnel to the stunning sight of the new Freedom Tower, which looked almost like a memory, a piece of the sky that stood out as special.
I often think about my own resilience through difficult times and building the resilience of my children. No place is more resilient than New York, and I consider it one of the better qualities of humanity, along with our ability to love.
No comments:
Post a Comment