Shortly after September 11, 2001, I came across the piece below on a blog called Right Thinking Girl. I've kept it all these years because to me, it was very powerful and touching. It's an imaginary letter written by a woman who died when the towers fell, telling her husband about her last moments and saying goodbye.
I thought it deserved to see the light of day again. In tribute to the writer (who I am unable to locate), in memory of the innocent people who died that day, and all of those who gave their lives trying to save them, here it is. It's called A Letter Home.
Dear S,
I know you wake up in the morning wondering if it was real or if it was all a bad dream. I know that the bed seems so empty, even when you're lying there, because you don't believe in the anything anymore, not even the physical realities of the world. You fail to see how you can be there, alive, when I am not, as if the notion of one of us existing without the other is incomprehensible. Those moments of confusion, when you think maybe you're the one who is dead because the pain is so immense that you simply cannot be alive and experiencing such depths of agony, well I know about those too.
I know you are wondering why you had to be on the ground that day, and why I had to be what seemed like a hundred miles up, in that tall silver building that seemed every day until that day to be indestructible. I know those dark and sour thoughts have worn neural grooves in your brain, and you go over them like worry beads, trying to find a way inside, a way to go back in time and stop it all from happening.
If only you'd done this, or that, or the other thing.
You couldn't have stopped it, baby. The origins of that morning were in place long before we got to the office that morning, long before we knew each other, long before we were even born. The more you chase the contrails of that event, the father you get away from me, because I'm still here, still right beside you, still loving you.
I know you cry yourself to sleep sometimes wondering if I was scared and if I was alone and what my last thoughts were. I was scared, but I wasn't alone. I was with Joanna, the same Joanna who was with me on the day I found out I was pregnant. The same Joanna who had eaten dinner at our table more times than I could count. The same Joanna you banished to the balcony so she could smoke her cigarettes. When we realized that things were bad, we huddled together, whispering our prayers. At some point it became clear that we had to do something. The fire was so bad by then. The smoke was too much. The flames were more intense than anything I had ever felt, it was as if they were electrified, just going everywhere and so violent. Together we stood on the glass of broken windows, smelling the big, fresh, blue air. We looked down, way down to the ground where the people were. So many people had already died. My boss. Jacie, one of my bridesmaids. Countless others. I was lucky, is what I am trying to tell you. I had time to call you. I had a moment where I could begin to understand, at least, the situation that had befallen me, though the thoughts were as empty as a canyon.
We stood on the ledge, and I couldn't do it. I am an optimist: I still believed that there was hope. Joanna was crying. A man I knew from down the hall came staggering up, and he choked, "I'll go with you."
He was burned. His clothes were smoking. And Joanna held his hand, and she hugged him. They stood on the ledge and I said, "I love you," to them both.
I don't know if they heard me over the roaring fire, the wind, their own thoughts streaming through their chaotic brains at that instant. Joanna didn't turn around to say goodbye. She and the analyst from down the hall held on tight to each other. The walls were closed in with fire, and my throat was choking on the smoke. Joanna tugged his wrist, just a little, and they vaulted from the small window, past the sky, past the idea of sky, to the snapshot blue, and the sea blue by association.
They fell from the sky as saints.
I was thinking about that time you took me to Coney Island and you made me go on the roller coaster, even though I didn't want to, and how I screamed and screamed and screamed as the coaster came screaming down the track, so fast that I barely had time to comprehend it. Our bodies: we believe in them the way we believe in our selves. It scares humans, I think, to get close to that interior edge where the two blur.
I turned from the gaping window. Things were so crazy, baby, you have to understand that at the time, the world had ceased to make sense. So far out there on the margins of existence, it is quiet as a Siberian forest. Time warps and slows down, and there is room to hear your own thoughts, the backlog of thoughts that have simmered under your consciousness for years. The flickers of impressions that glint in your daily life, emerge shyly in your dreams, trickle into the periphery of your conversations, it's all right there. As the flames licked ever closer, I was thinking not of death, not of pain, not of the heat or the roar of flames. I did not ask why? or what's happened?. I did not pray or ask God's forgiveness. No, none of that was very important at the moment. What I was thinking about was you. I have slept with you in that bed that now seems so empty and lonely for over ten years, and at those last few moments I was thinking of the nights when I would wake up for some reason and look at your face. You looked somehow smart even in sleep. Those moments were the most intimate, I think, because nobody else ever knew you like that. It was just for me. In those moments you were not distracted with the baby or work. You were simply my husband, in bed with me. So while I was in that office as the fire swarmed around me, I was thinking about you sleeping, your beautiful, sweet face in perfect repose. That was the last full impression to transverse my brain: the image of my husband sleeping beside me.
When it finally happened for me, I was suddenly jerked downward. There was a rain of fire and sheetrock, and it was over with just that simply. I didn't suffer, certainly no worse than some of the others did. I held the image of you as long as I could.
I am comforted now somewhat by the knowledge that you’ll find another woman who will make you happy. You will emerge from the office one day in early spring and you will discover yourself staring just an extra moment at a young brunette as she slips into a taxi. Or at the club you'll see an ethereal blond who reminds you of someone, and you'll talk to her, and for a few moments you'll remember what it's like to love, and to flirt, and to be welcomed into someone else's day. You will go on. You are strong and you are brave.
I am telling you this because I think the questions about my death are keeping you from seeing the world around you. You are getting all tangled up in the details of that day. My love, my love, remember my ravenous kisses, but escape them. You have the soft air and the sunlight among leaves and the cry of our baby to look forward to. Do not let me steal your universe the way they stole mine.
I wish you a long and happy life.
With love,
With love,
Your wife
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