Today is still a painfully sad day for me. I sat through the coverage waiting to see Dwight's picture and name. It's still on...the reading of the names, the poems, the tributes. It is all so painfully sad.
Dwight served on the board of Catholic Big Brothers (CBB) for many years - I believe over 25. It was a seat held by his father and a seat that was passed on to one of his sons after Dwight's murder in the tower.
I remember Dwight most vividy during our Strategic Planning process in the late 90's. The staff had done the preliminary draft, after analysis of current data and projections based on trending data (Cindy - do ya love it!). We then presented to a board Task Force, whose job it was to react and respond to the draft, give us additional direction and next steps, prior to the final presentation to the board. The Task Force met 2x for a couple of hours in the evening.
I only recall one of the meetings. Dwight was sitting at the far end of the conference room table, kitty-corner from where I sat. He was a tall man (well, 6' 2" is tall for me!) and very unassuming. He was always relatively quiet at board meetings, rarely speaking up with questions. When he did speak, Dwight had a deep voice, but always quiet and slow. I never saw him flustered.
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9:03am - The 2nd Tower is Hit.
I was on the phone with my dad. Alberta had called me at 8:50am to tell me to turn on the tv, that a plane had just flown into the north tower. I laughed. I was looking out the window at a clear, blue, gorgeous sky. I was disbelieving. Until I saw it. Then I was shaking and frightened. We talked for 10 minutes, then I told her I needed to call my dad.
I'm not sure why. We don't have that kind of relationship. It scares me to talk to him. But I needed to see if he was there. Suddenly I felt so vulnerable. As though the whole world might be being blown up. I got him on the phone right away. He didn't have a tv but had the radio on. As we talked, I watched as a plane flew into the south tower. I remember screaming, "Oh, my God! Dad! We're being attacked!" Dad was calm and soft-spoken. He got me calmed down.
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Dwight was known as the keeper of our "Catholic" identity. That's what we counted on him for. He didn't bring a ton of money into CBB (he worked for the Port Authority), but he never let us stray far from our roots and our home in Catholicism. He didn't argue the Catholic piece the same way Fr. Sullivan did - from the perspective of the Archdiocese. Dwight served a very different part. He was the voice that would always quietly ask, "what about the children?" He cared as much about who we didn't serve as about who we did serve. I realized much later that Dwight saw our Catholic identity with a little "c" - universal...serving all.
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9:29am - North Tower Collapses.
I was numb by then. Just staring back and forth between the tv and the window. The sky was still blue and cloudless. But now there was a haze blowing out from lower Manhattan. Like smog drifting in. I felt vulnerable in my 4th floor apartment...waiting for a plane to fly into my building or to start dropping bombs.
The phone rang. It was Lynne. She never called...especially from work. She never dared risk our relationship being discovered. But today she did. That day we both felt vulnerable enough to not care about risking the world knowing about our relationship. Lynne told me to leave. To go to ALC's house and stay with her. To not be alone. She needed to stay at the clinic, working with the staff to support the patients that came in for treatment that 9-11.
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They found Dwight over a month after the towers fell. He was in an elevator in the north tower. He must have been on his way up to work when the plane hit. The soft, quiet voice of CBB was gone.
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ALC and I walked across the street to Methodist Hospital to give blood. They weren't taking any more volunteers. Dozens of ambulances were idling. The hospital had mattresses stacked out on the sidewalk, ready for mass injuries. Multiple triage stations were set-up on the block. People were starting to walk around with masks over their face. It was getting foggy...hazy. A cloud was descending on Park Slope. No injured ever came.
ALC and I took her daughter, Moira (3) to the park. She didn't want Moira to have to listen to the news and hear all the bad stuff going on. We stayed for 5 hours. Before we walked home, we walked the Great Lawn. It was 6:20pm. Pieces of paper fluttered out of the air. Some burned, some charred. Some untouched, as though someone threw them up like confetti.
How could God allow paper to survive...floating in the air almost 8 hours after the 2nd tower fell...untouched? And where had the paper gone? Where had it been for so many hours?
As Moira and I walked around catching paper as it fell from heaven, I thought of the people who had last touched the paper. Were they alive? Did they jump? Did they fall?
Looking up, the sky twinkled, the sun reflecting off each piece of paper as it fluttered, silently to the ground. Like so many souls that day...falling silently to the ground as their souls soared up to the heavens.
9-11 is a very sad day for me.
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