Numbness for Sound

Eight years ago my life was marked with a moment that like the assassination of J.F.K would be a sharing point. Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?

I was laying cold and alone in my apartment on Prince and Stone. Shivering beneath a blanket my alarm went off and news coverage was blaring talking about fires and buildings and people falling from them. I hit snooze and turned over, five more minutes I thought, I just need more sleep. But then, at this particular point in my life, sleep was all I ever wanted. I never wanted to be awake because to be awake meant I had to feel, to face another day. To battle my demons. The radio went off again, still news reports, I shut it off, got up and readied myself for the day.

I remember driving up 1st avenue towards Ina listening to the local 93.7 station and thinking, “God, John Jay and Rich are freaking ridiculous, are they trying to do another war of the worlds type broadcast? These clowns will stop at nothing.”

And then I switched to another station, and then another, and then another it was all the same broadcast. When I entered my classroom an eerie paralysis fell over everyone, TV’s were on everywhere and everyone was watching live coverage of New York City with its skyline covered in smoke and the twin towers on fire. Terrorist had struck the towers with planes and people were dying. My mind became numb and in the next series of weeks I fought my love for the country with my doubts. How could we let this happen? I decided that united we sucked because we should have seen something like this coming. Something had hit home for Americans and we spent the next year mourning it.

So why revisit this moment in the wake of Christmas? I when I was 23, I was fortunate enough to see the World Trade Center construction site for the first time. I was consumed by this chilling feeling, as I stood outside of gates that posted signs “Authorized Personnel Only” peeking through to look at what remained of what once was two massive buildings in the New York Skyline. When I was 24, I saw the two bright beams in the sky in remembrance of the catastrophic events that took place September 11, 2001 and I was taken back, gasped in awe of the tribute among the darkened cloudy skies.



And then this weekend after many trips by it I stepped into St. Paul’s Cathedral, the church that stood across the street from the World Trade Center, the same church that only suffered the loss of a massive oak, but left the rest of the building untouched, unharmed. I walked its grave yard path, looking at each tombstone, snapping pictures and capturing the moment. Nothing would prepare me for the wave of emotion that would come over me the moment I stepped into the hallowed out church.

People swarmed the areas, pausing moments at erected memorials for the lives lost. The church smelled of an old book, dusted off and brought to life. I paused a moment to “To The Heroes” one message wrote from Crawford Elementary at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. Teddy bears, cards, notes, ribbons, balloons and flowered covered this spontaneous memorial that was erected in the following weeks after the fall of the towers. My hands trembled as I reached for my camera and snapped a photograph.


I moved on to the next, a statue of a figure covered in serviceman patches from all over the country. People gathering to show support for people they’d never met but felt a connection felt a need to be there for. For a moment I was there, could it even be possible for this type of transference? For me to feel the weight of the lives lost that day? To feel the pain these people felt having never lost anyone to something so heartless and tragic?



I moved to the center of the church pausing a moment at the altar to find my faith again. I knelt down, made the sign of the cross and stood. “Forgive me father for I have sinned,” I murmured to myself.

Looking up at the place where each mass would pronounce our sins washed away with the blood and body of Christ I realized that I hadn’t been in a church since my grandmother died almost 2 years ago. I had not felt my soul cleansed by theses sacrifices, and then I found myself standing in that church, a believer again.

I scanned the patrons of the church, some sitting, some praying looking up and to the back of the church a banner hung below the Organ read “To New York City and all the Rescuers: Keep Your Spirits up… Oklahoma Loves you!!” All over the banner were words and signatures from people again lifting their hearts and showing support.



“Artist Jessica Stammen used steel provided by city officials from the World Trade Center debris as the base for this 14-pound chalice. She cast a bronze sculpture of a tree trunk to evoke the Sycamore tree in St. Paul’s Churchyard that was struck down in the attacks. Two beams extend from the tree to represent the twin towers and the hands of gold enfold the top of the cup.”



Art really can move you. Even in the form of a cup or a Chalice. I stood there for a few moments in aw of what someone had created how they had so deliberately evoked an emotion in the strength of the piece but also the vulnerability of it all.

It was the final place I stopped to take in the loss of 9/11 that my emotions finally caved in. I stood staring at the ripped edges of an un-open birthday card that Read “Happy 40th Birthday” in cursive across the blue city-dirtied envelope. What was it about this card that crushed my nerve so quickly? Was it the fact that someone never got to read it? That the content of the card was like a postsecret secret waiting to be read, and a story to be told? Or was it the millions of pictures of people lost that day. Posted by friends and family.

Eight-years later and am humbled by an experience that moved me in ways I will never be able to articulate through words or art. Perhaps the danger of being human is more often than not that we are able to feel. I never thought something could have that big of an effect on me and as I was standing outside in the cool December air I looked to my side and saw my best friend standing there, both silent. I sucked in air, wiped my face and felt thankful for her, for everything that I have.

Recently I sent a short e-mail to my sister-in-law asking her what I should get for my nephews for Christmas, being across the country I’ve fallen out of step as to what they are into. I’m usually the boring aunt who is so enamored with fashion so much that I love buying clothes for my nephews. I enjoy dressing them in my own unique pull together of different things to create an outfit. I know as kids, this is annoying. Clothes on Christmas are completely boring and unwanted.

This year I was set on getting them toys of some sort. I remember I had made a phone call to Josh on his 3rd birthday. I spoke with him about what he did for his birthday and he explained to me that they sang a different kind of “Boothday” song. I smiled as I listened to how smart he was and how well he spoke remembering his brother’s early grasp of words and speech. When I asked to speak with Jeremiah the first words out of his mouth were, “Aunt Jennie, can you get me Legos for Christmas?”



I laughed but part of me hurt a little. Not that he was asking me for things, but that the distance that I had pushed between him and I had made it so that my only real responsibility in his eyes was to bring him presents when I saw him.


I had always been around in Jeremiah’s life watching many of his mile stones, living with my brother for much of Jeremiah’s early life provided connection. I was there to play with him, and show him how to throw up “the goat” and how to say “Rock and Roll!” or how to sing “Everybody backstreet’s back” Even though all he really ever said was “backstreet All right!” I took pride in introducing him to different types of music. I loved taking him to the movies, something that my Aunt had done for me, I wanted to do for him. Movies were our special thing, an outing when we would gorge ourselves on popcorn and share a drink. I watched cartoons with him and tickled him until he couldn’t breathe.



Of course living with him also gave him this “little brother” annoyance factor. Babysitting with him gave me this idea that I had to help keep him in line when he went off on one of his tantrums. I really lived by the tough love rule in my mind but often found it exhausting to keep up with all the constant changes and the lack of support from other older influences on Jeremiah. But I always look back on times when we would sit on my bed and he would have my headphones on listening to whatever it was I played for him.


When I think of him, I think of how within the first weeks or so of him being born I sat in his room on the floor listening to him breathe, the radio on low. He was so precious and little, the first baby in the family and my very first taste of what being an Aunt was.

And Then Joshua came along and I was an aunt two times over. His smile would light up the room and he had his own little personality budding along. He was clever and happy and Jeremiah was a good brother always fawning over his new little brother making sure he was okay. I knew that I wanted to be just as much apart of Josh’s life as I was his brother. I wanted to see all the milestones, to take him to the movies as my aunt did my sister and I. To show him how to do the “goat” and say “rock and roll.”




But then I wedge the country between us when I decided I needed to spread my own wings and fly. I’ve only spent a little over a year in New Jersey, but when I read the e-mail from my sister-in-law when she told me that Josh was a size 4T and Jeremiah was a size 7, I choked a little. The last time I checked, Jeremiah was still a 5T and Josh was 2T. I know very little about Josh now and almost nothing about Jeremiah. I no longer know what he’s really into and what things he likes. I’m not watching each of their milestones, I don’t get to see first hand the silly things they do, I can only see through pictures posted and I feel a little guilty for it.



It was very hard for me to leave them behind and still is. I am fortunate enough to be part of two other little boys lives as my job and it helps, but it definitely does not replace the love and the heartache I feel for how much I miss my nephews.