Twin Towers
At the time the terrorists were crashing into the twin towers in New York, Zach and I were on a plane flying home from a scuba diving trip in the Virgin Islands. When we had set up the trip, I had told him we had to be back by the morning of September 11 at the latest.
“Why?” he asked, “College doesn’t start until a couple of weeks after that.”
“I don’t know; maybe there will be a hurricane or something. It is hurricane season in the Caribbean.”
Zach nodded, turning back to the computer, punching in our dates. “You want to come back through New York or Atlanta?”
“Not New York!” The intensity of my reaction startled me. Zach turned to stare at me. “Atlanta, definitely Atlanta. Not New York!”
“Mom, wouldn’t a hurricane be more likely to hit between the Virgin Islands and Atlanta then the Virgin Islands and New York”
“Maybe it isn’t a hurricane. I don’t know what it is. I just know we have to be back early the morning of the eleventh and we can’t come through New York.”
“O.K.” Having grown up with me, Zach knew better than to argue with my precognitions. “If we get back to San Francisco by 6:10 in the morning, is that early enough?” he asked, after checking potential flight schedules through Atlanta.
I knelt and leaned my forehead against the desk. Something about this return trip from the Virgin Islands was making me short of breath. I cleared my emotions, imagined us landing in San Francisco at 6:10. I relaxed.
“Yes, as long as we fly at night and get back that early, it will be fine.”
Yet when we landed in Atlanta for our return flight, I was nervous. I kept looking at our fellow passengers, scanning their faces—for what? Once the plane was airborne, every time I closed my eyes I saw visions of men seizing a stewardess and cutting her throat. I got up and walked up and down the aisles, looking for potential hijackers, anyone who seemed crazy, nervous, or fanatical.
No one on the plane looked like the men I had seen in my mind. Not a single face made me nervous. I sat back down beside my son.
“What were you doing?” Zach asked.
“Just stretching my legs.”
“Maybe I’ll stretch mine too.”
Neither of us slept, though we tried. When we exited the plane in San Francisco, Zach said, “I have never been so glad to get off a plane.”
“Why?”
“You know me. I love to travel. I have never been nervous on a plane before. Never! But this time, every time I closed my eyes, I kept imagining hijackers killing the stewardesses and crashing the plane.”
“Really? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t want to make you nervous.”
“I was having those same images.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t want to make you nervous. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense. Hijackers take a plane because they want to go somewhere, like Cuba. Or they want to free political prisoners. Why would they crash it?”
He shrugged. “Weird. Weird that we’re both wrong. Lucky though.”
“Yeah, thank God.”
We went home and slept for a few hours, and woke to find that our fears had become a tragedy. Days later, we started hearing the stories of heroism and compassion, the counterpoint to the insanity that believes the deaths of innocents are justified by a cause. They all moved me, but the one that touched me most was not one I read, but one told to my by my Turkish friend.
Her family had some Egyptian acquaintances who owned a small restaurant in New York City. The night of September 11, they were open, but only one or two family friends had come to the restaurant. The city seemed almost deserted. Then three young men came into the restaurant. They started cursing the owners as dirty Arabs. They overturned tables, smashed plates and glasses and threw chairs through the windows. When the place was trashed, they left. The owners called 911, and within minutes the police arrived, having collared the suspects nearby.
“Are these the guys who trashed your place?”
“Yes, yes they are.”
“I assume you want to press charges?”
The Egyptian man looked at the three angry, sullen young men.
“I understand,” he said. “I understand what pain they are in. I—let them go. I do not wish to press charges.”
The cop looked at the restaurant owner as if he were crazy. “I can’t take them in unless you are willing to press charges.”
“Yes, I understand. It is a very difficult day for all of us. Please let them go.”
The police released the men and they disappeared into the night.
The Egyptians began sweeping up the wreckage.
But within half an hour, the three young men were back, and they had brought three more men with them.
The few people in the restaurant held their breath.
The men walked up to the owner and apologized. They piled his hands high with money and promised to bring more to replace what they had damaged. They said that when the restaurateur had been kind and understanding, they had realized that he was not the enemy. Then they all stayed for many hours, cleaning everything that could be cleaned up, boarding up the broken windows. The man’s unfathomable generosity of spirit had broken through their hatred.
Extending forgiveness to those who have harmed us requires almost superhuman strength, like the supreme effort of childbirth. Perhaps we should not be so surprised that such an extraordinary effort can result in miracles.