Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Dear Lord, I know my problems are trivial compared to the scores of prayers you are listening to right now. Still, you care for the lilies of the filed . . . the sparrows of the air. Surely you care for me. It’s so trivial! I know. I know. Still, these are my problems. We have only a little bit of cash left. Today, when I dress, I’ll put on the same clothes I’ve worn for the past two days. There’s no way out of this city. And I am stuck with the visions of a cloud of smoke hovering over the south end of a city, the endless sound of sirens racing to a tragedy, the large dump trucks filled with debris, driving past my hotel window Will American ever heal? Will we?
We’ve lost so much. Our trust in the fortitude of our borders, our loved ones. But not our will to survive. They can’t take that away from us. Never. Never.
Wednesday, September 12 2001
Late Evening
We spent a good portion of the day walking around the city, which is easy to do. There is very little traffic, human or automotive. Our first destination was to visit a cathedral directly across from Rockefeller Center. Again, we prayed with the weeping, the searching, the broken. Afterward, we walked to the Empire State Building, stood at the base of it and tried to imagine it falling to the ground. We couldn’t. It defies the ability of the human mind. It just isn’t possible, we reason. But, sadly, we know it is. Quietly, we headed to Grand Central Station, which was truly grand in structure, breathtaking really. Again, however, there was very little human traffic.
Because I write about Hell’s Kitchen in my novels, I decided to ask someone where it was exactly. We aren’t far so Dennis and I decided to spend some of our free time walking down to it . . . to explore it a bit. Along the way, I was saddened to see so many posted signs made by fearful family members and friends who had lost loved ones. “Have you seen this person?” they ask. Photos–some in black and white, others in color–showed men and women smiling in happier days. Photos taken . . . never knowing they’d one day be used in a desperate search for the missing victims of such an atrocity.
At 57th and 10th we spotted the King Word Production studio, so we decided to walk over and meet out producer. When she came down, she asked us to walk up the street with her, to a deli where she would buy a sandwich for lunch. We headed back up 57th. In quiet tones we talked, this lovely young woman who couldn’t understand any better than we two older adults what was going on in the world. At some point I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. She had friends, family, somewhere down there in South Manhattan. She could only pray to God for their deliverance from the temporary hell. We could only do the same.
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Night
We went to dinner at a small Italian restaurant across the street, one of the few we could find open. They asked us to share a meal because they had no way to get food supplies into the city and they weren’t sure when that would resume. We ordered lasagna, which we both love. At some point Dennis asked for a little more bread and was told that we’d have to share the two small chucks of Italian we were given at the start of the meal. We understood. Again, compared to the problems of others, this was minute.
We were shocked to return from dinner and learn the Empire State Building had been evacuated of any and all personnel due to a bomb scare. This leaves one with a strange sensation to know that a building just visited might have had a bomb placed in it. This, of course, frightens me. Along with others, I am guessing the terrorists might have planted bombs in the city to detonate during times when our guard is somewhat down. If I wasn’t ready to go home before, I’m really ready now.
Looking Back (2021)
Again, I didn’t record it, but I recall that on Wednesday morning I woke with fear gripping me so that I crawled (literally) out of the bed and into the bathroom with my cell phone. Dark had yet to lift from the city but, according to the time, I knew that my friend Kathleen Jackson, had made it to an Orlando Christian radio station for her morning show. While crouched on the cold tile floor and huddled under the elevated sink, I dialed her number and, when she answered, I whispered into the phone. “Kathleen, this is Eva . . . Dennis and I are in New York City . . . we’ve been here since Monday . . . I’m so afraid. What if we never get out?” Kathleen somehow got me on the air and asked questions about what we were seeing and hearing. I told her all I knew and asked for prayer. I asked her to pray that, for whatever reason God had us here, He’d reveal it.
I have no memory of going to another cathedral to pray, but apparently we did. There are several churches across from Rockefeller Center, including St. Thomas’s, which we had visited the day before, but I don’t remember exactly where we went. Perhaps we returned there. I don’t know. What’s strange to me now is that I didn’t write about the call to the radio station, which I remember well, but I wrote about visiting the church, which I don’t recall at all.
The novels I wrote about were the “Shadow” series–Shadow of Dreams, Summon the Shadows, and Shadows of Light.
What I remember most, now, about walking all over NYC is that I didn’t have the right shoes for walking, so my feet were killing me. We also, truly, were in the same clothes we’d been in since Monday. When I bemoaned this (and truly, my problems were trivial) to my daughter, she said, “Mother, you’re in New York City! Go shopping!” I had to remind her that stores were not open. We did, at some point, find a tiny boutique that had opened it’s doors. I managed to find a bohemian top for $10, so there was that.
Each time Dennis and I left the hotel, which became more and more frequent, just to get out of that little room, we purchased the latest edition of the New York Post, which I think was a quarter or maybe fifty cents. I still have them all, but the one that haunts me the most showed the photo of “the falling man.” Years later, I watched a documentary on who this man was and the story behind his fateful leap. If I remember correctly, his identity was never truly determined.
The threats continued the whole time we were there. The problem with things like this is that so much of it tends to be rumor you cannot discount. Sometimes the rumors are “jokes.”
But, as jokes, they aren’t funny. Ever.
So raw and real. It hurts me to read it. Thank you, Eva. It’s so crucial to look back.