11 Never Forget
ELEVEN
Never Forget
Every December starting when I was two, Mom dressed me (and later Jansen) in the nicest clothes we had and bundled us up in our coats for a trip into the City.
Manhattan during the holidays is pure magic, with lights strung on the tops and sides of buildings, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree spreading its branches over what feels like an entire block, and animated shop windows pulling you into a fantastical imaginary world.
I looked forward to these trips all year.
The chill and expectation in the air and the crowds of excited people filling up the City made it feel like time had stopped and all was at peace.
I had nothing to worry about and nothing better to do than to soak it all in and enjoy the time with my family.
Walking around Manhattan, I didn’t have to act older than my years. I was just a silly kid at Christmas.
But there was nowhere else that made me feel as free and innocent as Dad’s firehouse. That’s where we always headed right before or after we played tourist.
Dad’s last firehouse, where he was a lieutenant for five years, was Engine 4/Tower Ladder 15 in the Financial District.
Situated in a nondescript five-story building on South Street, with the FDNY’s trademark red garage doors, the company is a block from the East River and less than half a mile south of Wall Street.
As the southernmost firehouse in Manhattan, it serves block after block of skyscrapers filled with office workers, as well as the helipad, piers, boats, and ferry terminal that line its stretch of the East River.
It was and is a huge operation, and until 2000, I considered it my second home.
Each time Jansen and I walked inside, one of Dad’s colleagues would scoop us up in a bear hug, then let us run to the fire engines and climb inside.
When we got out, we’d grab plates and fill them up with whatever the firefighters had cooked that night.
One of the guys always dressed up as Santa when kids came to visit at Christmas, and he’d pass out gifts and candy to all of us.
The last Christmas we visited was in 2000 because Dad had decided to retire in January 2001.
It wasn’t an easy choice. Dad wasn’t one of those guys who’d been counting the days till he got his pension.
He loved his job and his colleagues, and even though he saved the lives of countless people, young and old, I don’t think he ever felt like his life was in danger.
At least, I didn’t. Kids have a hard time wrapping their brains around what true danger is; I feared auditions and the thought of losing sight of Mom in the grocery store more than I worried about Dad.
After twenty years on the job, though, it was time for Dad to hang up his suit and gear for the last time. Now he could focus on golf, his flooring business, and taking me and Jansen to auditions, shoots, and premieres.
Because he’d been a firefighter for so long and a social butterfly for even longer, Dad knew everyone.
Even after his retirement, the invitations for parties and picnics kept coming.
On Labor Day weekend, just before Jansen and I started school, Dad got an invitation to a picnic from the South Street Seaport crew.
“Wear clothes you can get dirty in,” Mom said. “Apparently there’s going to be volleyball.”
We drank too much soda and played volleyball for hours, then ran around with the children of firefighters I’d known my entire life.
When we went home, we were covered in dirt and sweat, exhausted, and stuffed with junk food.
The day was as magical as the summer afternoons I sometimes spent in Brooklyn with Grandma and Poppa, before they retired to Pennsylvania, when Dad and Uncle Donny would open the hydrants so the kids could splash and cool off.
A week after the picnic, I sat in Mr. Piscatelli’s sixth-grade math class at South Orangetown Middle School and heard the principal’s voice come over the intercom.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said between breaths. “But there is a small fire in the World Trade Center right now. If anyone here has a parent that works in Manhattan, please come into the office now.”
About half the class stood up.
What the heck is going on? I thought as my classmates filed out the door.
It had taken me a second to realize that the World Trade Center was what I’d always called the Twin Towers, but once I got it, I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was.
A small fire was no match for those huge skyscrapers.
Besides, Dad’s firehouse was right near there, and if anyone could handle an emergency, it was those guys.
A few minutes later, the school loudspeaker crackled to life again. “Attention please,” our assistant principal said. “Attention. We will be dismissing school early. Please get your things and wait until your parents come to pick you up. We’re calling them now. Repeat. School is dismissed.”
My breathing stopped and my heart sank. I didn’t know what was happening, but if school was closing suddenly, it had to be bad. Very, very bad.
After we were dismissed, the rumors started to swirl.
Some people assumed it must be a bombing, like what happened in 1993.
Others believed it was a fire, sort of like our principal had said, but much bigger.
I realize now the teachers knew every bit of what was going on that morning, but they didn’t say anything.
I’m sure they didn’t want to scare us. They could leave that job to our parents, who were parked out front or streaming inside.
“Dad!” I yelled as I saw my dad’s car pull up. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes, but let’s get you home first,” he answered as I got inside. “Your mom went to get Jansen, but they should be home soon, too.”
Then he pulled me into a big, bone-crushing hug, and part of me realized it was to comfort him as much as me.
When Dad and I got home, the TV was on, and for the first time, I saw the planes fly into the World Trade Center, one after the other. Dad didn’t cry. I don’t think his brain was able to process that much trauma all at once.
There’s nothing more noteworthy or important about my experience of 9/11 than a lot of people’s.
I just want to honor my dad’s friends, the fourteen firefighters—including one captain—who rushed to the Twin Towers immediately after the first plane hit and died at Ground Zero.
I’d played volleyball with them, eaten the chili they made, and climbed on their laps when they were dressed as Santa Claus.
Dad’s last firehouse was less than a ten-minute drive from the World Trade Center, so it was one of the first companies on the scene.
I decided to write about September 11 because that day serves as a defining moment for my generation.
It was the first time our eyes opened to politics and world events and the first time many of us truly felt vulnerable.
It was the first time we’d been old enough to understand that our country was entering into a war and the only time we’d experienced that degree of loss in only a few hours.
That day changed our relationship with our parents, too.
I never saw my dad cry, but I’m sure he did eventually, after the shock and sadness had settled into his bones.
Or maybe it was after he went down to Ground Zero a day or so later and began to dig through the rubble, searching for the bodies of his friends.
One of my favorite pictures of him was taken there; he’s wearing a hard hat, resting his head on a shovel, and standing on a pile of debris.
The world felt different, like all hope had dimmed, and the blue skies I’d gazed into that morning just didn’t seem as calm.
But I was proud of Dad. He’d lived through death, which is the hardest part of living, and now he was showing me how to do it with grace.
It was the toughest job of his life. He’d been in the business of saving lives, but at Ground Zero, there was no one left to save.
For my generation, 9/11 was the first time in a lot of our lives that we had to figure out how to comfort our parents and calm our teachers.
We said to them, “We’re okay. We’re not going to fall apart on you.
We can handle this.” 9/11 taught us the true meaning of resilience, breaking us but making us tougher because we simply couldn’t fall apart.
We had to be strong. And when I remember that Labor Day picnic, playing volleyball, or the many Christmases climbing onto the company fire truck, I try to be as brave as those firefighters and first responders were. I will never, ever forget them.