DJ tugged at my sleeve, pointing to a boy, perhaps 11 or 12 years old, standing across from us in our circle. “Daddy, that boy’s cry-ing. He’s cry-ing.”
Protected by a hoodie and doing his best to pull away from his mother’s embrace, the preteen’s shoulders moved up and down in a silent drum beat. From this distance I couldn’t hear him. I could, however, see the rhythm of his movements; as if observing a scene from afar. As if watching stock video on the evening news accompanying a well groomed anchorman’s delivery of a story, a story of loss. I looked away from too private a moment and tried to take comfort in the routine the newscaster might enjoy.
Perhaps, before delivering the story, the newscaster looked towards the camera’s bright lights peering past lingering childhood insecurities in a search for assurance, “How’s my tie? Straight? Should I purse my lips at the end, at the end of my delivery? Do I look burdened?” Then arching his powdered neck towards his producer, as if seeking a father’s final approval, “What do you think?”
“You look fine,” the producer whispers into his clip-on mike.
In the distance words come into focus, “In five, four three, two, yes.”
Looking away from the producer’s blessing the anchor responds to the camera’s red torch and glides into performance. Drawing a wise breath, he droops just the right amount and delivers a perfectly packaged glimpse of sorrow.
I return my gaze to the boy; that poor boy. He was closer than a newscast; much closer. I watched from far away and, if possible, felt myself break a little more.
We had started the day at 6AM, filtering towards the peer on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. Poor in circumstance but rich in grief, the families were gently searched, processed and instructed to board the ferry. Once on the ferry families huddled for comfort, some looking over the rails towards the future, others curled together in the seats. As I looked about those sitting, I couldn’t help but notice nearly every family appeared to be accompanied by an empty seat, a seat reserved for someone from the past; for some missing piece. Exiles from the comfort of previous lives together we struggled to find footing in a new world with an empty seat.
Upon arrival at our new world, our group of incomplete families departed and lurched forward towards a beacon of smoke. We made our way through various chokepoints and checkpoints towards a phalanx of blue uniforms.
Each family had been assigned a representative from FDNY. I marveled as every family, mine included, greedily pulled their assigned FDNY liaison into their orbit, assigning him the role of the missing piece.
The lieutenant assigned to us, FDNY LT. Sullivan, knew my dad. As he introduced himself he removed his hat. We took turns hugging. My sisters both took turns crying into his dress jacket. As he pulled away I watched my sisters’ tears cling to his lapel as if too scared to move. Gathering their strength, those tears deciding not to hold on and they began to roll down the dark blue uniform, gaining speed and lunging towards the earth.
He stood back, looking from person to person, methodically searching our eyes and wringing his hands, “When I saw you’s was coming, I asked, I asked if I could be with you and your family.” He stepped forward and held both my mom’s hands, “Ma’am your husband, he, he uh…” He stammered. “Oh man, let me catch my breath. Sorry, I can’t, I’m tryin’ ta breathe here. I’m so, so sorry for your loss, ma’am. So very sorry.” Without changing expression mom released tears. They traveled a short distance before joining my sisters’ tears in a leap to what I imagined could only be their death.
Still holding mom’s hands he looked around before continuing, “He, he was right here with us. They saved so many, so, so many. And, I, I ah well I knew him from Steam and OEM.” His mild eyes welled up. He stepped back and wiped his cheek. Mom stood firm, first gliding her hand up to squeeze his arm, then pulling him into a hug. So very tired, we fell around the two of them in a huddled mass, crying together. Looking down, I saw black dots blink into existence around my feet. They lasted a few moments and then, as if taking a breadth before a dive into the dirt, faded away.
We separated as I squeezed mom’s hand. Sullivan pulled in a breadth and smiled, for a moment almost content, “He was a great man, your husband. We worked many an incident together, many a long night.”
He smiled into the distance, into the past, before returning to us. He wore the expression the newscaster strived for, “The last I saw him, he was over there, at Command. They was set up there,” he said pointing toward a two story mound of rubble, “and when, when…” He trailed off. “Well, then we lost contact…” His voice floated away, joining the smoke around us. He was gone again. Then, jerked back to the present he stiffened his shoulders, “Please this way.” Mom feigned a smile as we joined others walking towards a destination marked by a pile. She squeezed my hand with all her might as her lower lip quivered. She released a second salvo of tears. They disappeared quickly into the earth below.
LT. Sullivan led us forward with the others.
In the distance the workers came into focus. Grayed out by smoke and appearing like immigrants in an old black and white photo standing at the golden gates of a slaughter house, the workers slowly stopped their scavenging for treasure. They now stood as ghosts, staring at the tempest tossed. Watching us.
Our huddle of families could not help but slow to a stop and stare back. We stood as one, like a jellyfish recently made homeless on a sea-washed beach.
As hundreds of workers stopped in their tracks; stopping cranes, leashing dogs, resting shovels and holstering walkie-talkies comfort’s maiden, silence, returned in a graceful bow. They watched us come to our standstill as if watching a background video on the nightly news supporting the story, the story of loss. Like me, however, they were closer than a newscast.
Then as one, as if choreographed, they removed their helmets, each man staring at us, mixing tears with the dirt on their sleeves.
After sharing this gift of silence our group moved forward. We came upon an opening in the wretched refuse of this place and silence was joined by bagpipes. Mimicking the foreign sounds first let loose on this island by those seeking succor over a century ago, her cries bounced off the wounded buildings surrounding us. The wails mixing with smoke as the buildings stood firm, like cliffs gouged in battle.
We crept past a final protective ring consisting of a chain link fence manned by armored personnel with automatic weapons. On the ground thousands of black rat traps stood vigil around the site. The children stepped over the traps, staring at the rubble and listening to the call of the bagpipes. Catching site of the traps the centers of every family huddle waivered. All around me the mothers broke out in tears.
We arrived at the site and formed into a large circle, with FDNY leaders in the center. The bagpipes let out their last echo.
Losing my train of thought I realized a Chaplain spoke. “… and your loved ones ran towards…” was all I heard. His words blended into a murmur as the workers on the pile slowly returned to task, probing and searching on behalf of the families they spied from afar. I floated away, up into the smoke, until DJ tugged at my arm, pulling me back.
Following DJ’s extended finger I focused on the boy. He was sobbing. Around our circle many sets of shoulders moved in such a motion; like pistons on an assembly line of tears. They were all crying as the individual parts of our circle rhythmically produced tears, depositing them one at a time onto this spot.
I closed my eyes hoping to contribute my own tears to the volley. None came.
I wanted to add to this production line of tears thinking, perhaps, if those workers don’t find our missing, our tears will. Crafted individually and at great cost, they take flight from lashes, and chins and cheeks and lapels and dive gracefully towards the earth, embracing the dirt in the form of those tiny black dots.
Our circle of families worked nonstop, pounding out tears and releasing salvo after salvo in search and embrace missions. We worked on behalf of each other, not caring who our tears were to find.
“Go where fingers and shovels can’t go. Dive deep to find someone, some small piece of a loved one and let some part of me deliver this final embrace wrapped with care in a tear.”
I watched the small storm of tears form into black dots before they took a last breath and vanished below the surface.
“No, we can’t embrace you again, or tell you one last time we love you, but some small part of us – of me – will find you. Some small piece of me, poured from a circle of blackened teapots, will find you. We tilt and pour servings from broken spouts, serving a last dream of going where our injured hearts and digging fingers cannot, to say something we wished we had said earlier, perhaps on that morning before you left.”
Leaping forward then rooting through the earth these tears shall wind their way to some distant piece of you, buried perhaps a hundred feet below and mixed with glass and beam and concrete and the former routine of daily life, whispering, “I’m here with you. I’m with you now and, yes, I love you.”
DJ persisted, leaning forward and pointing to a second boy somewhere between DJ’s age and that of the preteen, “Look! So is he. He’s cry-ing too, daddy. They’re all cry-ing!”
I turned my attention from the circle of families, and cupped the back of his head with my hand, “I know, wonderful, I know. He’s crying because he’s sad.” I bent down to join DJ’s two year old view of the world. I pulled him close and whispered, “He lost his daddy. He’s sad because, somewhere around here, he lost his dad.”
“These men,” I turned and pointed to the men crawling into voids and pulling rocks off the pile like lines of ants digging into mounds of earth, “well, these men are looking for his dad; for all the dads. And he’s crying because he’s so sad. He’s sending, we’re all sending, tears to find his dad. To say a final ‘I love you’ to his dad.”
Focusing on a specific portion of my comment, DJ asked, “Where? Where’d his dad go?”
Before I could answer, Gee stepped forward, blocking my view of the boy. She had been listening to our budding conversation. Like the boy, she was crying, yearning to breathe free of sobs, sucking in air as her tears leapt towards their journey, “I’m sad, too da.., daddy. I miss. I miss him.”
I pulled her forward. She pushed her head into my shoulder, nearly toppling me over into the dirt. I rebalanced myself, settling on a kneeling position in the dirt in front of my children. I held Gee against me as Liz looked down, stroking Gee’s long brown hair.
I squeezed Liz’s hand, forgetting the fight we’d had early this morning when getting the kids ready for this journey. At 5AM we had broken into a heated exchange. I looked up to see her crying. Her tears fell first on Gee and then on the dry earth, joining the search for fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and sons and daughters.
Throughout our journey to this place, Liz had been stoic. She lost her dad when she was 10 and her mom was forced to leave their Caribbean island in search of a future. A newly minted widow, Liz’s mom brought three small girls, no skills, save for the will to struggle for a future, and enough money for maybe a couple of months to this new world.
Cast from her Caribbean home that newly minted widow brought my future wife, a woman whom, over three years of painfully trying as an adult, as my wife, never gave in to my urgings to check the nationality box labeled “Foreign” when completing her medical school applications.
I had pushed her. “Liz, you’re from another country, check the frigg’n box. Check this one!” I urged, stabbing my finger onto the application. “You’re from the Caribbean. Just say so. You’ve been trying to get into medical school for years. Just check it. It’ll help get you into school, god dammit.” We had broken into heated exchanges again and again as I persisted. “Liz, come on, it’s a fact. Just check the god damned box.”
“Stop it! I’m an American now. My God, don’t you get it? I live here. I’m from here now. This is my country, Beasley. Just leave me the hell alone and let me decide who I am.”
My wife, the mother of two. My wife, the doctor. My wife, the surgeon. She had decided for herself. And she had decided to love me and love my parents and now this loss was I imagine more painful for Liz than for me as it dug deep into her past. I saw her jaw muscles clench as tears let lose. Like my mom, she was too tough to sob.
DJ poked my cheek with his index finger, “Why aren’t you crying, daddy? You’re dad’s here.” Annoyed at his poke to my face, I grabbed his finger and then, thinking twice, gave it a little squeeze and pulled his hand away from my cheek, holding it. I pulled Gee and DJ together so they faced me as I knelt before them. I whispered, “I wanna cry, but I guess I have no right to cry here. Look around you. Look at all these people. Over there. And over there. Look around, at all these kids your age or, maybe a little older or maybe even a little younger.”
Dutifully they looked around, before returning their gaze to me. “Of all these people in this circle, our family is, by far, the luckiest. I am the luckiest. We found my dad, up there.” They followed my finger as I pointed towards the destroyed atrium. “Almost all these people, all these kids – kids just like you – well, they, they don’t even know what happened to their dads. They never found them. These workers around us are looking but I don’t think they’ll ever find them. Ever. So, I guess that means they’re still here somewhere, mixed with this, this dirt and rubble.”
I rubbed my hand in the dirt, making sure not to disturb the black dots preparing for a final mission. Drawing up my dirty hand I presented my palm. I leaned in and whispered, “They’re here, mixed in this dirt. In here could be the tiniest pieces of their dads. That’s why they’re crying.”
“And, well, ya know, my dad was older. I got to have my life with him and he got to see me grow up and fall in love and have you two. And, he ah, he taught me to drive. And he gave me advice when I fell in love with your mom and he, ah, he told me stories like about when he was a little boy. These kids, well, they won’t have that like I did with my dad or like you’re gonna with me.”
DJ scrunched his eyebrows, struggling to understand.
At six Gee was capable of coming to grips with the situation and the context of our loss and the context of loss to those around us, “Will they forget, them, daddy? Will they forget their dads when they’re older?”
“Oh, Gee, I hope not, I really, really hope not. But ya know, when you lose someone, they’re not all the way gone. Pieces of you stay behind; some are here in the earth and some are here, in your heart,” Softly, like a wisp of smoke, I touched Gee’s and DJ’s chests. I moved my hands up, stroking their hair, “and here; in what you learned from them, in all your memories. And sometimes, well, sometimes you remember them like movies, or sometimes like pictures and sometimes it’s like you remember a story someone told you. Like the stories I tell you.”
DJ began to cry, “What if you die and then, what, what if I forget you?”
Gee joined in, “I don’t want to forget you or mom. What if I do forget?”
I leaned in close, smoothing the edge with a smile, “Well, how ‘bout this; since I can’t cry, well then I’ll use the tears inside me to make stories. They’ll form black dots on paper and dive deep to find a buried piece of me. OK? So, when you’re growing up, when you’re getting bigger, I’ll write down stories and then you can search through them to see a little piece of me any time you want, OK? ”
I looked up at Liz, “And mom, well mom’ll take pictures ‘cause she’s really good at taking pictures. I’ll write down my stories, even the private things or the ones I won’t want you to know about until after you’re all grown up. And it will be like a secret and, when you’re older and grown up, I’ll leave them for you to find somewhere. And you can search for them and find a piece of me. So you won’t forget. Alright?”
They nodded. Gee stared at me, “Ok daddy, you write the stories on paper and we’ll read them when we’re grownups. And I’ll read them to DJ if he can’t read yet, OK?”
“Deal. I’ll start today and, someday, you can read them and you can find a piece of me.
