It is February 13, 2009.
As soon as I open my eyes, I reach for the TV remote on the nightstand.
This had been my routine upon waking up ever since 9/11. On that clear autumn day in 2001, I went about my morning routine, sending the kids off to school, having breakfast, going down to my basement office to write. At 9:37 (I know the exact minute today) I felt the house tremble and heard a far-off rumble. Construction noise, I thought. Then I heard sirens. First one (the closest Arlington County firehouse is just four blocks away), then another, and another. So many sirens that I walked up the stairs and out into the street to see if I could see the cause, maybe smoke rising somewhere. All I saw was a bright blue sky above the trees. I went back into the house and the phone rang. It was my elder daughter, calling from her high school.
"Dad, dad, is mom okay? We heard there was a car bomb at the State Department!"
"Uh, I don't know. She hasn't called. She must be okay."
After I hung up, I turned on the TV. I watched as the Twin Towers burn and collapsed. I heard about the car bomb rumors, about the plane crash in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon, which is just three miles from my house. The rest of the day was a blur. Picking up my two younger kids from their nearby elementary school. Telling them that some bad men crashed airplanes into buildings. Heavy traffic through my quiet neighborhood's streets because the main roads were jammed. Watching the confused, frightening, heart-rending images on television. So many perished. So much destruction. Relieved at the end of the day when the family was together and safe. Wondering what this horror all meant.
In the days that followed, I wondered what I could do. As an American, I wanted to serve my country. I learned that I was too old to enlist, so I sought other government jobs but without success. In the years that followed, I learned that the 9/11 Commission would be established to discover how the attacks came about and how the government responded. I didn't get a position on the commission, but I went to one of its hearings so that I could write about it. That's when I met Beverly Eckert, one of the family members who lost a loved one on 9/11 and worked on a number of reforms, including the establishment of the commission.
Beverly met her husband, Sean Rooney, at a high school dance. They fell in love, married, and made a good life for themselves. On 9/11, Sean was on the phone with Beverly when Tower Two collapsed and ended his life. She vowed to make sure that such a catastrophe would not happen again, that such an attack would never prevent a loved one from returning home.
After we spoke, and exchanged messages, Beverly agreed to my proposal to write a book about her story. In subsequent years, we spent many hours talking about her work and her life. She sent hundreds of emails describing her 9/11 reform work. This work included attending a meeting, along with other 9/11 family members and USS Cole bombing family members, with President Barack Obama on February 6, 2009 to discuss the closing of US detention facilities at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, where terrorism suspects were being held. Beverly shook the president's hand and gave him a letter describing her agreement with him to move detainees from Guantanamo to the US for trial.
It is February 13, 2009.
I click the remote and the first image on the TV screen is Beverly's face. What? Why? Could it be a story about her recent trip to DC? The next image is of a burning aircraft. All on board, including Beverly, perished in a crash the night before, February 12, as the plane was descending toward Buffalo, where she was born, where she grew up, where she fell in love and married, where she was returning to celebrate Sean's birthday and to present a scholarship she had established in his name.
I cried. Beverly's family and friends lost a caring and devoted loved one. Her community lost a neighbor who help kids read and do math at the local elementary school, who helped build houses for Habitat for Humanity, who kept the memory of her husband and 9/11 alive with small memorials around Stamford, Connecticut. Her country lost a courageous and articulate citizen activist who worked with her colleagues to make airlines, skyscrapers, the country safer.
Parts of Beverly's story are out there, but the larger story she wanted told is around me in boxes and files. The story I had promised her to tell has been stalled for too long. I am in my basement office, at that same desk, surrounded by her words and the documents she collected. At last I ready to finish her story.
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