A Wake-up Call for Peace
My Journey Through 9-11
by Carmen Roberts
Macaro Media Group Inc. ©
2001-2011
All Rights Reserved
It was
my day off. I was sleeping in after a late night, curled up in my
antique bed with the window blinds drawn tight. Even though I
live just a few buildings from the World Trade Center site, I’m not sure I
heard the first plane crash. The second crash startled me awake, but
it sounded like a giant thunderstorm echoing down the canyon of what were
New York’s tallest buildings. I rolled over, pulled the covers up, and
went back to sleep—until….
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Until I heard the most horrific roar
imaginable wash over me and yank me out of bed. I jerked open the window blinds and stared
in confusion out my 11th story window at what should have been a view of the
south WTC tower. But what I saw was nothing—a black nothingness that is burned
into my memory and my nightmares. The blackness rushed toward me, shaking my
building and my mind. The only light came from red embers shooting through this
animated madness. My mind ran through hundreds of scenarios in a split second. What was this monster engulfing my building, my life? Its roar sounded as if
it came from the bowels of the earth.
Voices! I heard voices in my hallway. Two neighbors told me, "the World Trade Center had just fallen on our
building!" They left and I turned back to my apartment where the lights were
flickering and my phone was ringing. I answered simply, "I’m OK." It was my friend from Arizona. "I’ve got to go. We’ll talk
later." I hung up and zoomed around my apartment.
I started chanting
Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo (my Buddhist practice) and gathered my things. I gently but quickly nudged my 14-year-old cat, Fuji, into his
carrying case. |
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Washington Street. My building
is the light gold one on the left,
just three buildings south of the WTC.
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While he cried, I continued grabbing. I threw a bottle of water and some cat food into a big bag, tossed in a radio,
flipped in my cell phone and charger, and other quick essentials.
When Fuji and I got to the bottom of the
stairs, an ash-covered fireman directed us out of the building. "Go
south," he said. "Go quickly." I was still chanting, silently
now, trying to summon more courage than I have ever needed.
With about 50 others, I walked quickly down
West Street. All around was a smoky white ash. It covered everything:
people, fire engines, the street. We hurried, kicking up the ash with every step.
Suddenly another loud noise! Everyone
looked back toward the WTC. Nothing. A minute later another horrific noise
swept over us. We looked back again, and saw the cause. A huge debris cloud
was growing higher and higher above our heads. It was spilling over, rolling down
the street in a strange, slow motion movement. But it was not slow. It was
barreling toward us. |
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Fuji
1987 - 2003 |
Voices behind me yelled, "Run!"
"The other tower just collapsed!" Others screamed. Everyone ran. I
hurried as fast as I could, holding tight to my 16-pound cat in his carrier and my bag. I reached the park, but could not run another step.
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I crawled over the
green, wooden benches that line the perimeter and just stood there,
gasping for breath. From my right I heard someone say,
"In here!" A man and woman were standing just inside a small
concrete men’s room.
We closed the windows, shut the door and
waited. Everything outside turned ashen. Three men stumbled in, white from
head to toe, coughing and spitting. We all listened to the reports coming from my
radio of the madness outside. |
Battery Park
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When the debris cloud settled
enough, we left and headed for the Staten Island Ferry and off Manhattan. I tried to call my mother in Florida. No luck, but I reached my
brother in Dallas to tell him I was alive. At that moment he
knew more than I. He, like the world, was watching the terror unfold
on television, and as he heard my voice he began crying.
When I arrived on Staten Island and could
reflect for an instant, I realized this was the biggest event in my life. As a
journalist my heart pumped. I had to work. Had to cover this. So I began talking to
whomever I could. "Where were you? Tell me how you got out? Does
your family know you’re alive?"
One woman covered in ash, her long brown hair
tangled and tossed, sat before me. I looked at her bare, dirty feet, missing shoes lost
somewhere in the tower. She explained with a weak voice how she worked on the 20th
floor of one of the towers. It took more than 20 minutes to reach the lobby and the
horror it held. Bodies, body parts, fire, smoke, chaos everywhere. Her words
lived through me as I phoned them in to my company’s radio network and our audience
– which hopefully included her family and friends in Hackensack, New Jersey.
A young Turkish woman, who lived a few
buildings from me, told of her troubles of calling her sister in midtown Manhattan.
Phones worked one minute and not the next. Reached one area of country or city, but not
others. She was finally able to reach her parents half-a-world away in Istanbul. They called New York to tell their other daughter the needed news, her sister was
alive.
Endless stories flowed from those around me,
but tears, for the most part, did not. Shock kept them trapped inside our bodies, at
least for the moment.
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View from Staten Island |
Later I sat on a hill and watched my
neighborhood burn. I kept my terrified cat close, listened to the radio, and
connected all the dots. A terrorist attack. Both towers decimated.
People jumping from the flames to their death. One couple even holding hands as they
leaped. The Pentagon hit, another plane crash in Pennsylvania, and on and on.
I sat there watching the massive tower of
smoke rise from downtown Manhattan and tilt toward Brooklyn. I tried to make sense
of this incomprehensibly illogical and evil act. Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism
teaches that all the treasures of the Universe are not worth a single human life, and if
we are to solve the serious problems confronting humankind, we must first acknowledge the
inherent dignity of each life. |
Deep sorrow filled my soul for the thousands
I knew must have died. I grew angry with the perpetrators. How could someone
be so evil, so misguided to believe this was necessary?
| Late that day, I left Staten Island by
walking across the long and windy Bayonne Bridge to New Jersey. Eventually I arrived
back in Manhattan at 9:00 p.m., where a friend took me and Fuji in for the night.
Three months and three places later, I moved back to my Ground Zero apartment.
Nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. Those people are gone, but I am still here. I therefore
believe I have a responsibility to live a meaningful life, to make every day count. |
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The 1.6 mile Bayonne Bridge links Staten Island, NY to New Jersey.
The day of the attack officials closed all the bridges
in and out of New York City. The Bayonne reopened late in the
day, but only to pedestrians. |
Sept. 11 changed everything.
I am trying to summon up the wisdom to deal with all this, to turn this
poison into medicine. As a Buddhist, I know there is a reason
for everything, and I know it is no accident I lived so close to what was
the World Trade Center.
I believe the survivors must use this tragedy
to unify the world, to speak loudly and sincerely for peace, to seek justice for the
thousands of victims – but not retribution, and to stamp out the evil of terrorism
with education. After all, the terrorists were not born hating us. They were
taught that.
The terrorist attack was a
wake-up call for me. It rattled me out of my sleep and reawakened me to my mission
to lead a meaningful and happy life. I hope it will be a wake-up call for the world
as well.
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