If Memory Serves

The certain uncertainty of “where were you when”

When I still worked full-time in corporate, even early on in my career, I would often try to bundle in a few personal days, if my business travels took me anywhere near family or friends. My Virgo rising, aka the rule follower, also always made sure this was not at any extra expense to the given company I was employed by at the time. I spent my mid-to-late twenties serving as Marketing Director for Dark Horse Comics, based just outside of Portland, Oregon. During my five year tenure, my role required fairly consistent travel, from comic book conventions to book industry events and direct market retailer summits.

One summer-into-fall, I led our engagement at the latter in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, a stone’s throw from my suburban Detroit childhood stomping grounds. Adding a FWA to DTW leg to the tail end of that trip actually made my flight cheaper, but the weather had different plans on the Sunday I was scheduled to fly. Massive thunderstorms and tornado watches-turned-warnings grounded the small commuter flights, but I was determined to get a day or two in my hometown, and rented a car instead. Out of pocket, of course. Seemed like a small fortune at the time, but I bet it was less than $100, gas included.

Joke was on me, though, because those very same storms and tornados stayed on a parallel path with me the entire drive. Why I didn’t just pause or abort the entire plan, I don’t recall. And I made it to my dad’s house in Grosse Pointe in one piece, of course, but to this day, I don’t think I’ve ever had a more stressful experience in a car.

I had the next day off, but what I did on that Monday in the Detroit suburbs, I don’t completely recall. I’m sure a Sanders Bumpy Cake was involved. I was also still drinking then, so there was probably a Tap Room visit with an old friend.

My return flight to Portland was scheduled for around noon the next day, a Tuesday. My dad woke me up a bit before 9:00am, and mentioned there had been a plane accident in New York. There weren’t many concrete details yet as it had just happened maybe 10 minutes prior. But my dad was a seasoned flyer, and knew from experience that even one accident in a different city could cause a domino effect in other hubs.

He suggested we get going sooner than later.

Just to be safe.

So I was up, in front of the television, when I saw what I thought was a replay of the plane accident.

But now both World Trade Center towers had massive gashes in them.

Not one. Two.

And realized what I had just witnessed, live.

And that “accident” was not even remotely the correct description. And that nothing would ever be quite the same again.

The minutes and hours that followed were a blur. The Pentagon. The first tower collapsing. The crash in Shanksville. The second tower down. Each update was more surreal than the last one, and like many others, there were personal connections unfolding with them. My dad, a retired Navy captain, knows the Pentagon well enough to know the side that had been hit was exactly where some of his closest friends were located. He got real, real quiet for a very long time until we got official word of who was safe, and who was not. My brother had also just come back to the D.C. area maybe a month prior, after two years at the embassy in Indonesia. I worried about him and his wife constantly when they were overseas, even more so when they shared the amazing news that they were expecting their first child that December. That relief I felt when they came back stateside evaporated very quickly when we had a hard time tracking my brother down. His role took him to multiple locations in the D.C. area, everything from the Pentagon to the State Department to even the White House. He never stepped foot in any of these buildings that day. Had accidentally left his phone at home, and been stuck in snarled, redirected traffic trying to make his way back to the house once all shit broke loose.

The television coverage was 24/7, including replaying and replaying and replaying the moments of impact that had been captured on camera - so basically every plane except Shanksville. The networks did not seem to consider how re-traumatizing the impact footage was, especially for those with loved ones on board or in the buildings that were struck. I remember stepping outside and sitting on a wooden bench swing in my dad’s backyard on that Tuesday, trying to breathe. How blue the sky was. And how empty, with the exception of a cluster of Air Force jets zooming past overhead. Days later, I tried to disconnect again with a bike ride, but completely defeated my own purpose by bringing a Walkman with me so I could listen to NPR updates the entire time.

My stepmother was a travel agent, back when that was still a job people needed. All flights had been grounded, and when they started up again, I swear she booked me on three separate airlines back to Portland. I think at this point six days had passed. The plan was just to go to the airport and see which, if any, actually left. One did. I don’t remember much about the flight except being very quiet, and wondering the entire time whether there were air marshals on board.

Years later, a colleague and close friend and I were talking about where we’d each been that morning, the way people do every September. Trading our “where were you when” stories. And he questioned mine. Suggested I may have unintentionally rewritten the moment into something different than what actually happened. I was taken off guard, adamant, then defensive, and it quickly spiraled into a heated argument, the kind where you both dig in, including him citing a study where psychologists had surveyed people’s 9/11 memories starting the very next day, then checked back over the following years. Consistency for flashbulb memories didn’t hold up any better than consistency for an ordinary control memory from the same week. What stayed different was confidence: people’s belief in their own accuracy stayed high for the 9/11 memory while it declined for the mundane one.

My friend and I got past the argument, the way friends who truly care about each other do. But I still think about it every year around this time, and honestly at other times too, whenever I catch myself being completely sure I remember something exactly as it happened. These days, I often struggle to remember what I was doing 25 minutes ago, let alone 25 years. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Half of my lifetime ago…how is that possible?

I was blessed not with just one but three nieces during this time, who are all grown now. For them, 9/11 is a moment of learned history, not lived, though they certainly have their own “Where were you when” stories, including COVID which rocked their formative years.

We’re all going to have our own collective markers of moments, many tragic, some hopefully triumphant. Memories we stand certain about. But perhaps it’s not the specific details that matter or what’s worth debating in terms of accuracy.

What I do remember, what I will always remember, what I am absolutely certain of, is the shift that occurred in my soul that day. The realization of how temporary this all is. And what might have been the first (but not the last) time I truly tasted that bittersweet recipe of profound grief and tremendous gratitude. No study required.

XO,
SG

Hopeless Semantic lands in your inbox on Wednesdays. If someone in your life belongs here, send them this way.