Of distance and closeness around 911
911 happened while I was living in the U.S. with my wife and our younger children for five years. We had just started our workday when our regional president called everyone into a meeting room, live news pictures were playing on the big screen. Together with 30-40 colleagues, we watched silently and stunned as the second plane flew into the south side of the South Tower.
After a shock-filled and deathly silent quarter of an hour, we began to contact our relatives. Our president: "We don't know what is happening and will happen in the country, but it seems safe to move freely. Please go to your families now. Anyone who wants to talk to me or wants support: I will stay until the building is empty."
That's when I got the call from the Elementary School to please come pick up our daughter as soon as possible. My daughter's school was located 500 yds next to one of the largest fuel depots on the east coast. It was one of the places that was immediately evacuated on a large scale, triggered by cold war emergency plans. Our son's kindergarten was on the other side of town, so my wife and I drove in different directions to collect our children. This growing distance was a feeling of powerless uncertainty.
The drive to the Elementary School was marked by questions of what my children were witnessing, how I as a father cold support them, and of course how I could protect the family, what else might happen, who might attack, for how long, where, and by what means. Safe at home, we tried to follow the news without upsetting and scaring the children. The evacuation left them exposed, of course, but we managed to maintain a cocoon for them over a few days.
Our neighbor was a SWAT team leader with the FBI (Narcotics), a guy like a bear who exuded joy of living and humor from every pore. He stayed in bed crying for three days.
The next months were marked by an incredible closeness of all, prudence, calm, listening to each other, lunch with the family every day, even more joint activities with the children and a lot of cozy time.
On one of the first days when the airspace over downtown Manhattan was reopened for civil aviation, I flew on approach to LaGuardia coming from Battery Park along West St directly over Ground Zero. I will never forget the image of the smoking rubble and the deathly silence on the plane. It felt like even the engines had fallen silent.
Our son (kindergarten age), who we thought couldn’t have an active recollection and understanding of the events, drew a picture in February 2002 of two skyscrapers, falling bombs and people, one wearing a turban and long beard.
