By The Rev. Andrea Raynor
Every year, it rolls in like a storm. No matter how much you’ve been bracing for it, it still catches you by surprise. You remembered the umbrella but the sheer force of the squall tears it from your hands – and all you can do is stand in the downpour getting drenched to the bone, your tears comingling with others in a collective cloudburst of sorrow.
Sept. 11 has come around again.
“Still?” a colleague asks me. “After all these years?” For a moment, I feel a lightning flash of anger as I try not to cry. Yes, I say, swallowing back my misplaced rage. Still.
He doesn’t know that every anniversary of Sept. 11 lands a blow to my chest. I’m not alone in this. Every year, the wound reopens for those who served and those who grieve. The day comes and we are Prometheus in a fresh cycle of pain. But instead of our livers, our hearts are torn apart and forced to regrow.
Twenty-five years have passed since Bishop George Packard and I met on the soccer fields of Rye Rec. The sound of children playing and whistles blowing provided a surreal backdrop to the conversation going on between us. I sensed he was measuring my spiritual reserves before commissioning me to serve at Ground Zero. As a decorated combat veteran, his wisdom is hard earned; gaining his trust, a privilege.
We both had daughters starting third grade at Milton School. At a somber Back-to-School Night, his wife, Brook, quietly shared how her husband was an Episcopal bishop to the armed services who was mobilizing spiritual care to Ground Zero and the Pentagon. As a hospice chaplain, I was well-acquainted with death, and immediately offered to serve. Then we embraced, two mothers sharing the broken hearts of so many.
Our daughters were eight years old. They are now 33. I recently asked mine what she recalled about Sept. 11. She said she remembered school pick-up that day. We were holding hands as we walked toward an ice cream truck. When I offered to buy her something, she got a bad feeling. I hope that what she has retained is not the trauma of what I had to share, but rather the sensory memory of her small hand in mine, the reassurance that she was safe, and the promise that love helps us through our darkest hours.
And there were many dark hours. Nights at Ground Zero blended into days at hospice. Conversations with weary workers drifted like incense into the sanctuary of the night. In a small trailer known as the Temporary Morgue, chaplains of every faith took eight-hour shifts, blessing remains as they were recovered. I was part of that continuous prayer wheel, serving every other week or so from October until June. Somehow hospice patients were seen, my children, fed.
I did not lose anyone but, for a time, I lost parts of myself. Sorrow took root where optimism once bloomed. I grew quiet. Meanwhile, remnants of Ground Zero were secretly hunkering down in my cells. The miscarriage I suffered soon after the first anniversary of Sept. 11 should have been a clue. Instead, it just broke my heart. When I was later diagnosed with a 9/11-related cancer, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was – at least the first time. The second time, I just went numb.
I have told these stories over and over. I’ve written about them and dreamt of them. Trauma takes a long time to process. In the absence of a hand to hold, we remember the pain. We go back to it again and again hoping it will come out differently. The scars on my body are a map of where I’ve been; my spirit, the parchment on which my story is written. Tracing the lines, I try a little harder to live up to the life I’ve been given.
There were times I felt my grip slipping from the hand that had always held mine. But God never let go.
None of the students at Manhattan University, with whom I now work as a chaplain, were born when 9/11 happened. For most, it exists only in clips from an increasingly distant past. One student told me the images of the towers falling were shown so many times in high school, it desensitized them to the tragedy. What’s more, because the attack was committed by forces outside of our country, a “one-off” so to speak, it felt less dangerous than the violence perpetrated daily from within it. School shootings, families torn apart by ICE, environmental disasters – these are the storms of her generation. And what good is remembering, if nothing ever changes?
Since 9/11, some see only more violence, more intolerance, more greed; more twisting of religion for selfish gain, more division in our country. If our yearly remembrances are only performative, they lose the power to inspire us to do better. Let’s make it our mission to embody some of the goodness that rose like a defiant phoenix from the ashes of Ground Zero. Let’s allow the best of who we are to shine in acts of courage and compassion.
Our divided country was less divided after 9/11 because we remembered (for a time) what unites us: our common humanity, our basic decency, and our shared hope for the future. May it be so again.
The Rev. Andrea Raynor is a chaplain who served at Ground Zero for eight months following 9/11. She will be will be speaking at both the Rye Firehouse memorial to 9/11 and a Wainwright House program on Sunday, Sept. 13.
