Don't Leave Home Without Them-Clean Drawers

We will always remember where we were on 9/11. Always. For me, it was one of those typical days when I went into work early, 3: am. I still owned my corporate catering company then and we had breakfasts to deliver and plenty of lucrative lunch business. It was going to be a great day. I was addicted to National Public Radio in the morning, still am. Early, early they broadcast from the BBC. Early morning, still dark outside, money making business on the books and National Public Radio. I remember that feeling of how life just doesn’t get much better.

Rudy, my best driver, was out delivering breakfasts when news of the twin towers stated coming across the radio. When Rudy was finally able to call in, he was setting up breakfast in a conference room that had a TV tuned into CNN. He was rooted to the floor. Immobile. As was I. As were we all. Obviously, sadly as a nation we made it through the day as dreadfully terrifying as it was. That day wasn’t the whole story for me though. It was that night and the morning that followed.

My children were full of questions that evening, just as everyone’s children were. I answered their questions as best I could with what little information I had and with all the words God could put in my mouth. I remember we stayed up late no matter how hard we tried to follow our usual routine. With Lia and Casey finally settled, I myself made it to bed about midnight. I laid my XL nightshirt carefully at the foot of the bed along with my cozy house slippers and fell dead asleep in one of my simple white cotton nightgowns. My internal alarm went off, per usual, at 3: am. I slid out of bed, put the nightshirt on over the nightgown, stepped into my house shoes and slipped so very silently out the front door and into my car. Without turning the headlights on, I pulled out of the driveway and headed to the kitchen. This was my normal routine, slipping out of the house in the dead of night without waking up my children. I’d go the kitchen and get work done, in my nightgown and nightshirt until the sun started coming up. Then I would head home get dressed, feed my kids and get them off to school.

Did I feel like the guilty Momma for leaving my kids in the morning? Absolutely! Yet, I had no choice. The kitchen needed tending and many a morning over all the years, I completed more work between 3: and 7: am than I did the rest of the day. I was a single Mom doing what I needed to do to provide.

In the wee morning hours of 9/12, I slipped quietly out for the mile drive to my kitchen. Haven’t brushed my teeth and not wearing drawers. I pulled out of the neighborhood onto the main street where the kitchen was located and was immediately greeted with flashing blue and red lights, fire trucks and police cars. Emergency vehicles end to end in front of the group of buildings where my business was! The street was blocked off and I am close to hyperventilating as I crept up towards the first police car. I was waived out of my car so I could speak. Yes, in the nightgown, covered with the nightshirt, hair pebbles style on top of my head in the big clip and rotten morning breath. I tell Mr. Policeman that my business is in there and I need to get in as the panic bubbles up from my gut. Turns out there is a fire at the other end of my building and I need permission from Command Central down the street in order to enter the parking lot and get to my business to see if there is any damage. So here I am at 3: something in the morning, walking down the main street in my house shoes and no underwear to get permission to get into my business.

I did get in and I didn’t have any damage. Praise God. I don’t remember crying. I just brushed by teeth, arranged my hair back on top of my head and got to work. Apparently the business at the other end of my building was owned by a group of Muslims. The security cameras showed that they set fire to their own business in an effort to burn it down and blame it on a 9/11 hate crime. Bad scene. Bad people. Bad damage. Bad day to not be wearing underwear.

I was born in Manhattan and remember the towers well. They are part of the fabric that is me. My Lia and I had a theatre trip planned to Manhattan in the spring after 9/11. Even though we were encouraged to cancel it, that was simply not an option. We visited Ground Zero where the air was silent and respectful. There were still working cranes standing tall in the hole and debris hanging from the tress. The buildings next to the tower’s hole were still covered with burnt windows and charred concrete. Some of my closest relatives came to join us and we took the ferry out to Lady Liberty and Ellis Island. My grandfather came through Ellis Island so many years ago and I still remember taking the stairs to Lady Liberty’s crown when I was little. You can’t go up inside of her anymore, sadly she’s closed. The view from the top of her head is unbelievable. Like you can see the whole USA!

My Cousin Joe and I stood at the ferry railing looking back at the Manhattan skyline, minus the twin towers. It was a powerful moment as we remembered doing this exact thing so many, many years before when the towers were standing so strong and larger than life. The skyline was sadly empty. It hurts to think that my children will never see them and that the Manhattan skyline has been forever altered.
Our theater trip was perfect and New York City was as clean and welcoming as ever. Returning home, I never again went to work in my nightgown and nightshirt. I never again went to work without brushing my teeth, brushing my hair and making sure I was fully dressed.

I pray for all the people today who lost loved ones in the Twin Towers and for all those affected personally by the dreadful events of 9/11 so many years ago. I pray for them peace and healing.