Island of Compassion: 9-11-2001

And so, it begins for me again: that wave of melancholia that sweeps across my chest, that heavy swell in the pit of my belly, the trouble swallowing. The date is 9-11 and the vivid remembering begins.

I am a member of the generation now ‘at bat’; one of the cohorts who remembers the very time and place hearing the news President Kennedy was assassinated. It is the generation whose weightiest question became, “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” a mantra of sorts, one supposes, that supplanted “Where were you when Pearl Harbor was hit?”

A huge chunk of our youthful idealism was chipped away that November in 1963 and in the years that followed, as assassinations nearly doused the flame of our desire to shape a more just world: Medgar Evers, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy.

The assassinations of King and ‘Bobby’ cut deeply. I was watching television while feeding my infant firstborn when both news bulletins – literally just weeks apart – interrupted programming. Into what kind of world did I birth this little human?

This was my vivid reflection – that question searing through my mind – as I stood with my family on Sept. 17, 2001, at Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange, New Jersey. I was viewing the smoke still spewing from the fallen Twin Towers, each deliberately struck by individual commercial passenger airliners.

My daughter – with our first grandchild, an infant girl, asleep in her arms – and her husband were standing in front of me. What were they thinking? Were they wondering into what kind of world they had brought this precious bundle?
It was hard for me to fathom these notions might be pervading yet another generation. I had not really thought of this tragic generational parallel until that moment. During the days prior, I could only think of getting home……

Several days earlier on 9/11/2001, near the end of a perfectly smooth flight across the Atlantic, the captain of Air France flight 004 interrupted the thoughts, conversations, and light slumber of his passengers. I was one of those lightly slumbering, on my way home from a business trip to Paris and scheduled to arrive in Newark, New Jersey at 10:20 am.

Of course, I thought, it was time for the captain’s perfunctory flight update. Most of us were half listening until we heard the word "diverted," after which a few soft sighs could be heard. The next phrase, however, caught our attention: "because of terrorist threats against the United States."

The barely audible sounds of soft sighing suddenly became completely perceptible muttering as anxiety became palpable.

During the next several hours a harsh reality unfolded. The passengers of AF 004 learned that the United States had been attacked and all air space around the country was closed. Our flight was being diverted to Gander, Newfoundland. Gander? Never heard of it.

Nevertheless, like thousands of others who were diverted to that little isle of compassion on 9-11-2001, I grew to know Gander well. I became one of the town’s "plane people." Yes, there were thousands of us who benefited from the caring friendship of our northern neighbors living in one of the smallest and northernmost Canadian communities.

While we sat for hours and hours on the tarmac of the tiny Gander airport, what we did not know was that the town was readying itself for a deluge of thousands from various cultures and locations worldwide. Gander was getting ready for a variety of dietary requirements, myriad pharmaceutical needs, and any number of languages.

I might have guessed it though. Pulling up the shade next to my seat, I was stunned by the sight of what seemed like an endless trail of jumbo passenger jets lined up nose-to-tail on the runway. From my perspective, the mindboggling scene almost looked like an arrangement some child might create with a playset. Almost. But, of course, this was no playset. It was an unnerving, daunting reality.

For over two decades now, I have often thought of risks the residents of Gander took by opening their collective arms so wide. Did authorities wonder about the possibility terrorists might be aboard one of the nearly forty planes that landed at Gander International that day, their plans temporarily foiled by the closure of U.S. airspace? It was an unknown.

Nevertheless, the town opened its arms and hearts with hugs of human kindness and benevolence. Little did I know how much I would learn about Gander. Little did I know how much I would grow to love this outpost of human generosity.

And little did I realize while sitting on the Gander airport tarmac for eleven hours, that my thoughts, feelings, impressions, and experiences of that day and those to follow were to become indelible in my memory.

Of all indelible anxious memories of 9/11, foremost, though, is the incredible warmth, compassion, humanity, and generosity of the citizens of Gander, who shared everything they had with us – including the shirts off their backs.

How on earth, I wondered did this tiny town put together a plan massive enough to house, feed, and entertain the thousands of us? How did these northern neighbors sustain their energy, their compassion, their patience?

As I grew to know the members of my newly extended ‘family,’ I wondered no more. These hardy, weather-worn Canadians are selfless; and caring is at the heart of their actions, whether among themselves or among strangers… those who ‘come from away.’ I was a blessed beneficiary and all I could do was – and is – simply love back.

When 9/11 approaches each year, I still feel the anxiety of that day. It is something I do not think I will ever get over, if there is such a thing as getting over a life altering experience.

As memorial programs flicker on the television, I will observe the appropriate minutes of silence. I am thankful and feel blessed to be one of the lucky ones to come out of 9/11 with mere anxiety.

But as September 11th approaches each year -- and on many other days as well -- it is the memory of Gander’s kindness that I strive to hang on to and savor. Indeed, the memory of our Canadian neighbors making our worst days endurable, sustains me still, knowing that there exists in this world an indelible human kindness even in the face of fear and the potential for danger.

On September 11th – and again on many other days – it is also my strongest prayer that “where were you when the towers fell?” will be the very last generational mantra of its kind; that neither my grandchildren nor yours will ever suffer the type of defining moment experienced by their parents, their grandparents or by the greatest generation – a generation our grandchildren may never have the privilege of knowing.