 Coping
with the 9.11.01 Aftermath
Accounts of Survivors
"You protected me from sadness."
How a Mother Helped Her Children Understand the 9/11
Tragedies
By Allison Salerno Trevor
After my husband narrowly survived the Sept. 11 attack on the
World Trade Center, I now worry if my sons will ever again feel safe in the
world.
My husband, Greg, works for the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey in public affairs. He escaped from his office on the 68th floor of
Tower One 11 minutes before the tower collapsed on Sept. 11.
When we finally connected by phone about 2 p.m. that day, we
both were anxious about our boys - then not quite 5 and 2. We particularly
wondered about Gabriel, whose 5th birthday was the next day. As much as we
wished to shield him, we knew we had to tell him what had happened; otherwise he
would find out from his fellow kindergartners. Greg and I agreed his party would
go on, even though Greg could not take the day off as planned. We didn't want to
take Gabriel's special day away from him.
I told Gabriel that bad people had hit Daddy's building with an
airplane but that Daddy was OK. He laughed. "Gee, that would be hard," he said.
Relieved, I thought he saw what happened as something out of a "Power Rangers"
episode.
It soon became clear he understood much more - despite not being allowed to
watch TV images of the attacks.
During Gabriel's birthday party, which he had planned with me in
great detail, he sat on the floor of our family room, fiddling with his new
pirate ship, while his friends enjoyed the games and snacks on our backyard
patio. He ventured outside only to blow out his candles.
Greg was gone from home 18 hours a day; the boys were sleeping
when he left in the morning and when he returned close to midnight each night.
The phone rang constantly - neighbors, family members, longtime friends and
members of the media, all wanting to know about Greg, some not quite knowing how
to ask.
"People are calling because they think Daddy is dead," Gabriel
said. I tried to reassure him "No, people are worried and are so happy to hear
Daddy is alive."
At bedtime he would ask me "How is Captain Kathy?" referring to
Port Authority Police Captain Kathy Mazza, a friend of Greg's, who we later
learned had died rescuing people from Tower One. "We don't know yet," was my
answer. I didn't want to lie and lose his trust. But too much truth didn't feel
right either.
Greg had begun working at the Port Authority when Gabriel was 2.
Gabriel often put toys in Daddy's briefcase. Over the next couple of years, Greg
had assembled on a shelf in his office quite a collection of Matchbox cars,
Tinkertoys and action figures. The boys loved to play with those toys when we
visited Greg at work, which we did less than a month before Sept. 11.
For months after the attacks, Gabriel would ask if rescuers had
found those toys. He would scan the New York Times' photographs of Ground Zero,
hoping to see them. "The bad guys broke a promise," he told me. "Daddy promised
me I could have those toys in my office when I grow up and now I can't. It's not
fair."
Some nights, Greg would lie in bed with Gabriel, answering his
questions about jet fuel, the war in Afghanistan and the nature of evil. It
seemed to comfort them both.
Often, my own words felt inadequate. I said we could be thankful
that Daddy was OK because God protected him. "But God didn't protect all the
people who died, did He?" came Gabriel's response.
All year Gabriel crayoned images of fiery planes hitting the
Twin Towers. I came home one day to find he had convinced a babysitter to make a
book out of construction paper called "How the Twin Towers Fell."
When his kindergarten teacher asked the children to write their
New Year's resolutions, Gabriel drew mostly in black - the sun, the Twin Towers,
a crashing plane and an army tank ramming into Tower One. And then he drew his
resolution: NO WAR. LOTS AND LOTS OF FUN.
It felt as if we all were making progress.
For a Mother's Day poem, Gabriel drew the Twin Towers again.
This time, I was standing in front of them, crying. Written beneath was his
message: "T is for the Tears you shed to save me." When Gabriel explained to me,
"You protected me from all the sadness of that day," I felt a measure of
success.
At the time of the attacks, Lucas couldn't talk yet, so I
assumed he didn't understand what had happened. A few weeks ago, however, he
asked why an airplane hit Daddy on the head at work and why an airplane didn't
hit his nursery school.
Gabriel asks us: "Why couldn't the bad guys have picked some
other buildings to hit?" He has come up with all sorts of scenarios about how
the plane could have been diverted from the tower - there could have been
invisible guns on the roof or a magic shield around the building.
Greg has begun to collect new toys, family photographs and
artwork in his new office, on the 19th floor of a nondescript building that we
tell our boys no bad guys can find. On the bulletin board above his desk is a
drawing by Gabriel; the Twin Towers, tiny, and a giant Jedi looming over them.
He holds a light saber, forever protecting the towers.
This year, Gabriel has traded his fascination with pirates with
an enthusiasm for "Star Wars" and is planning a suitable birthday party for
Sept. 12. He loves to tell us how in "Star Wars," the Jedis always defeat the
evil forces. He's inviting just a few boys to our home because "that way we will
all stay together and people won't go off into little groups and start
fighting."
And when he turns 6, Daddy will be there.
Five Years Later
Sometimes after dinner we hear the voices of boys one block
over, shouting to each other during games of Capture the Flag that extend over
several front yards and driveways. Our two boys will ask, “Can we go to
Lincoln?” We tell them to be back before dark. Off they go, around the corner to
Lincoln Avenue, on their bikes or scooters.
Five years ago today, I would have taken such moments for
granted. Five years ago tomorrow, I learned what extraordinary moments they are.
My husband, Greg Trevor, nearly died
in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Escaping from his office on the 68th
floor, he managed to exit Tower One 11 minutes before it fell.
I worried then our sons would never feel safe in the world
again. In the intervening years, we have worked hard to give our boys, now
nearly 10 and 7, a carefree childhood. For me, fighting terror begins in my
heart. I am determined not to let what happened to my husband rob my children of
their sense of freedom and security.
The realization that someone could take something so
essential from our boys also gave me a deep connection to families in other
neighborhoods in our world. I am sad for parents who live under constant threat
from thugs who rob them daily of their safety. No matter how hard their parents
wish, too many children live in places where they cannot freely ride scooters to
stores for baseball cards or pitch a tent in a backyard for a birthday
celebration.
I have felt the truth of the ancient Catholic prayer to the
Archangel Michael, which speaks of “all the evil spirits, who prowl about the
world, seeking the ruin of souls.” In the aftermath of Sept. 11, I felt the
presence of raw evil.
I watched my husband mourn the death of dozens of dear
friends and colleagues and struggle to understand why he survived when so many
didn’t. I saw our older son’s rage at the murder of his father’s friends. I saw
him grieve for the loss of the toys he had so carefully collected for his father
on his office bookshelf. I heard our younger son, then not quite two, ask why an
airplane hadn’t hit his nursery school, too.
But even in the first few days after the attacks I realized
Greg and I could teach our sons by letting them watch us heal from this barbaric
act. They could watch us live each day with acts of kindness and filled with the
joy of being alive.
The Sept. 11 terrorists tried to steal my family’s time,
our sense of security, our very lives. Instead, we have felt time slow down. Our
family takes pleasure in simple things – like grilling corn, shooting hoops,
painting the back stoop, holding hands.
For many families, a few circles removed from the actual
attacks, the fear of terrorism has been abstracted into a fear of travel, of
visiting big cities or foreign countries, or of traveling on airplanes or
Amtrak. Even in our own children, despite our always shielding them from TV
images of violence and war, fragments of fear remain. A few months ago, driving
down the New Jersey Turnpike, we saw a car stopped on the shoulder. The boys
asked me if I thought the smoke from the car might be from a car bomb.
Greg and I don’t fear much now.
Our oldest son took an airplane alone this summer to visit
his grandparents on the South Carolina coast. We knew the value of nine days
swimming, fishing and surfing with his grandparents far outweighed any risk he
might encounter.
Our family is thriving. These days, instead of enduring a
long commute to New York City, my husband works a 17-minute walk from home. Our
sons, Gabriel and Lucas, attend a tiny Quaker school where they learn how to
treat others with respect - even in conflict.
Gabriel turns 10 Tuesday. The attacks happened half his
lifetime ago. Unlike the dark and fiery images he drew in the months after the
attacks, he enjoys writing comical stories and drawing funny, fantastical
pictures. He plans to be a filmmaker. He tells me once he makes it big, his home
on the Hudson River will be three stories tall, with the third floor a tree
house for his children.
Lucas is almost 7. He loves to run, he loves to sing and he
dreams of designing big buildings. “I just want to build things, Mom.” How
hopeful this all sounds.
As for me, I now trust people a lot more than institutions.
I am distressed by politicians and professional provocateurs who have made
money, gained power, waged war and polarized our wonderful country by exploiting
our fear and sorrow about Sept. 11. I am angry our government has abandoned its
efforts to bring to justice Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks. But
because I know that the Secretary of State won’t be seeking my guidance on the
current administration’s foreign and domestic policies, I tend to my corner of
the world. And I won’t let myself fall to the lure of fear - no matter who is
promoting it. I believe a far stronger power of goodness sustains me.
I work as a volunteer, raising funds for a local nonprofit
that offers a free after-school drop-in center for middle-and high-school
students and affordable summer day camps to families who otherwise would have to
leave their children unsupervised.
Our family joined a new church in our town. Our kind and
thoughtful priest leads a community of fellow travelers who raise each other’s
spirits and nurture their journeys.
Last week, I was excited to start a new job at our
community college. I teach writing to new high school graduates who have
struggled with learning.
And because I have come to believe that acts of ordinary
kindness hold great and lasting power, when I hear the boys in the neighborhood
gathering on our driveway, I get the lemonade ready.
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