She was just two years old.
On the way to bring her to my mother's so I could go to work, I had a
flat tire. Her father came to meet me
and fix the tire, while I entertained a two year old by the side of a country
road in Lyman Maine. The tire fixed, I got her buckled into her
car seat. The radio came on when I
started the car and its then that I heard it.
I had been listening to Imus in the Morning. Don Imus was talking about how many people
worked in the World
Trade Center,
how many could be affected, how many hurt.
No one knew how far reaching this was going to become.
We all have our memories of that day. I wasn’t born when Kennedy was shot. I was too young when Armstrong stepped onto
the moon’s surface. I have a vague memory
of Nixon’s resignation, only because my father told me that I’d read about it
in my history books.
My little daughter doesn’t remember that she was asleep on
the couch when I sat with my parents in their living room and saw the south
tower crumble. I can recall my father’s
long low whistle, the one he uses when he sees something incredible, natural
devastation or an unfathomable horror.
Here we are, so many years later, and watching the story
unfold again as the anniversary nears reminds me not only of how fortunate I am
to have been able to sit safely with my parents that day, with my little girl,
my vibrant, sweet, healthy little girl, asleep within sight. I’ve been able to watch her grow up and have
enjoyed the every day things with her. I
have lived my life seemingly unaffected by the day.
But aren’t we all affected?
Its not just the changes in airline regulations or the New York skyline, yet those are regular
reminders. The mindset of the world is
different. We as Americans came together
to mourn and then set out for restitution.
In August, our family vacation was off to a wonderful
start. A beautiful Saturday morning, we
left Maine, heading for New York.
We had plans to visit Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and with enough time, the 9/11
Memorial site. We found out that
although free to visit, you must make reservations to enter the grounds. We took to ferry from Liberty
Island to Battery Park and walked the few blocks to the site. The line to enter the Memorial wound around
and through several security checkpoints.
Once cleared, the clamoring of the crowd in line was hushed in
reverence. Entering the park like
setting is unsettling in a way. How can
one person possibly absorb everything this space means? The waterfalls that mark the footprints of
the buildings seem to have been designed so that no matter how tall, a human
cannot see the bottom of the falls. It
just pours endlessly. I think that the
sound of rushing water is an appropriate diversion from the sounds of the city
around it. How else to create a silence
of sorts? Piped in music would not have
worked here. Who could decide what would
play? What is right for one is not for
another.
We walked around and read names. Someone had left flowers near one of the
victims names. It made me wonder whether
that was a regular occurrence, whether somewhere in a room at the Port
Authority offices, there is a collection of items left in remembrance.
The names of all of the victims who were killed that day are
there; the people in the buildings and those who went in to save them, those in
the Pentagon and those killed in Pennsylvania. Some of the names sounded familiar; perhaps
they had been singled out for their actions or their strength.
The names that made me stop and take a breath were trailed
by “and her unborn child”, like this one.
Many women died here. Many of
them were mothers. None so clear to me
as those women.
Maybe to me, it helps to find one story to focus on in this
post. This is what I found out about one
of the women who died “and her unborn child.”
Vanessa Lang Langer was 29 years old and from
Yonkers, NY. (Born: Bronx, New York). Vanessa worked for Regus Plc on
the 93rd floor in the South Tower of the World Trade
Center.
On September 11, 2001, Vanessa, who was four months pregnant, escaped from the South Tower. However, her quest for survival had fallen short. She ran as the South Tower collapsed. She did not make it. Her body, and in it the small body of her unborn child, was pulled from the rubble of the fallen tower on September 24th, just ten feet from an alley between Towers IV and V.
Vanessa's husband, Tim, fell into a spiral of alcohol abuse after the death of his wife and unborn child. He died of liver failure in 2005. He was 34.
On September 11, 2001, Vanessa, who was four months pregnant, escaped from the South Tower. However, her quest for survival had fallen short. She ran as the South Tower collapsed. She did not make it. Her body, and in it the small body of her unborn child, was pulled from the rubble of the fallen tower on September 24th, just ten feet from an alley between Towers IV and V.
Vanessa's husband, Tim, fell into a spiral of alcohol abuse after the death of his wife and unborn child. He died of liver failure in 2005. He was 34.
The phrase "and her unborn child" follows the
names of the expectant mothers -- who also include Monica Rodriguez Smith, 35,
of Seaford, who was
working her last day before maternity leave when she was killed in the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, and that of Jennifer L. Howley, 34, of New Hyde Park, who
was expecting her first child in January 2002 when she died in the towers.
Vanessa’s story is so sad in so many ways. Not only was she killed as she was so close
to escaping, the story goes on to destroy her husband as well, years
later. Vanessa’s mother has been a vocal
advocate for the 9/11 commission and investigation of the disaster. How far does the web of pain thread in her
family, amongst her friends? What might
her child have gone on to do in his life?
How would this world be different?
