Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

9.11.2022

I left NYC the day before the planes hit the trade center, to work at a legal clinic. Jenny was working at a school on 114th Street when the attack took place. She walked home on Broadway that day to West 3rd, the subways were closed. Traffic was shut down too. She stayed in the middle of the street, for fear of more attacks, until she reached 14th Street, where the military had already cordoned off the area, allowing only people who lived below it access.

She was 4 months pregnant. She felt incredibly lonely and helpless. The phone system wasn't working, overwhelmed with callers, and we didn't speak until late that night or maybe even the next morning. All she could focus on, despite being 4 months pregnant, was how she could be useful. 2 days later, she began working (each day until school started, and then on the weekends) 12-16 hours a day pushing wheelbarrows full of bottled water into what became known as the pit, until she was too pregnant with Leiney to do so anymore.

Every year she was taken back around this time, and overwhelmed with grief at the immense loss and trauma caused by the attack.

Jenny's exemplary service was so typical of her, so innate, it was almost invisible. It isn't that it was expected from those who knew her, but was seen as just part of her nature. When I remember 9/11 and heroism, I think of Jenny, who never would have accepted the label.

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I am blue today. This day is always hard. This year, coupled with my birthday falling the day before, and both devoid of Jenny's energy, it is even harder. I cried for the first time in days, and am just that sad. I hate this. I hate all of it. I just hate it.  The smoky air from the wildfires provides good plausible deniability, should people accuse me of tearing up.