A Story that Belongs to Us

Ten years ago this morning, I was sitting in front of a tiny color TV set we just gave away last year, watching a rerun of E.R. and trying to get Annabelle to eat. At 8 weeks, she was more of a puker than an eater.

The scene cut abruptly from medical drama to a real live one, and I tried to figure out what all that black smoke on the TV screen meant.

“Raaaaaaaaaaay!” I called. “You better get in here.”

We watched like the rest of the world.

And then I got annoyed.

“OK,” I said, holding my finger in the air. “The phone will ring in three, two one –”

Briiiiing.

The newsroom at the daily where Ray worked at the time. Right on schedule. What on earth could the city editor want? Really, I thought, will anyone will be interested in “streeters” (the term jaded journalists use for those man-on-the-street interviews you do in your hometown, to tie it to the tragedy du jour) when this is so obviously not a story that belongs to us, but New York City’s tragedy?

Of course as it turned out, this was the nation’s tragedy. The world’s. And by week’s end, Ray was right in the center of reporting the not-insignificant Arizona connection — one of the pilots had lived and trained not far from our home in Tempe.

I was not  happy about the father of my newborn baby traipsing around shady apartment complexes, talking to that pilot’s friends and neighbors. At the time, we had no idea where something like that would lead. Nerves were raw, the future uncertain. Couldn’t leaving New York be a plus for once? Keep us out of danger?

Ray did good work on that story. And as it turned out, a man did die on the streets of metropolitan Phoenix, and it was tied to 9/11, but it had nothing to do with that pilot, not really. A sweet man who happened to be a Sikh (meaning he wore a turban) was gunned down outside the gas station he owned in Mesa by some terrified, angry, incredibly ignorant asshole.

Two days after 9/11, I taught my first class for Mothers Who Write. Unsure of what else to talk about, and unsure of my new role as instructor, I asked students to write down what happened to them on 9/11 and read it aloud.

Last week, my co-instructor Deborah Sussman and I asked our students to interview one another about where they were 0n 9/11/01. No one had trouble remembering. Almost every story started like mine, in front of the TV, and as I listened I realized how important it is that these stories are told — and heard.

No one was ever quite the same after that day. But I don’t have to tell you that.