In the City of the Sky

The sky today was blue. Too blue. Too achingly, beautifully blue. In this post-Labor Day September, when the haze, humidity, and smog of summer are gone, you can look at the sky and see a palette of shades of blue visible only a few days a year.

I looked at the sky a lot in the summer of 2002. My summer was filled with markers – the next thing to do. First, it was finishing a manuscript. Then a major bout of dental work. Then Fourth of July fireworks filled the night sky as I sat in the backyard holding hands with my husband. Then our first vacation on idyllic Nantucket Island. Then the Labor Day weekend. Then -- nothing. Nothing to block that inexorable march to September 11, 2002. I was looking down a long tunnel toward that day. There was and no “next” anymore to distract me between now and then.

I took the train from Connecticut to the city (and when you grow up in the New York suburbs, it is always just "the city") just two days after Labor Day, 2002. It was a rainy, misty morning. I was incredibly grateful for that gray sky. I didn’t think I could bear looking out the window expectantly as the train winds through Queens and the skyline comes into view if it were another beautifully blue September morning.

When I was a young girl from the suburbs, the Empire State Building was the focus of the dreams and excitement that the city represented. When we took school field trips to the city, we craned our necks from the school bus windows until we saw it. That art deco landmark was New York. When I returned as an adult after being away at college and moving to Connecticut, instead of a school bus, I took the train. And, with my maturity, the focus on the skyline shifted downtown to the two pillars. They weren’t charming; they weren’t part of a child’s dream. They meant business, opportunity and instead represented the thoughts, hopes, and dreams of adults.

But it was still all about the sky. For New York is about the sky. Skyline. Skyscrapers. Tourists peering skyward and bumping into you as you walk down the street to get to an appointment. And so, the greatest attack on American soil was appropriately all about the sky in the city that is all about the sky.

The attacks came from the sky. Everyone looked skyward to see what happened. And when the unspeakable occurred, the sky was obliterated in a reflection of our horror and disbelief. The morning’s events were so unbelievable and heartbreaking that it was as if the beautiful post-Labor Day blue of the sky had to be erased. It didn’t belong anymore.

The sky continued to change that day. It was incredibly blue at 8:30. By 9:00, it was punctuated with black smoke as you looked south. By 10:30, it was black – for my dear friend who eventually escaped downtown, there was no sky, no up, no down. It was just blackness. It finally became lighter, but the sky was replaced with the smoky haze we all moved through that day, that week…wherever we were.

I first took the train back into the city the first week of October 2001. As we came around the bend and I scanned the skyline, the cleft downtown was unbearable to see. Tears filled my eyes. I saw the thoughts, hopes, and dreams that were dashed. My trip to Ground Zero was in March 2002. I wanted to go when the lights were on – the beautiful blue twin towers of light that replicated the buildings and, yes, stretched into the night sky as far as the sky was high. I went near midnight when it would be quiet and empty of street merchants and tourists. As an ER nurse, I always worked with first responders who were working on the pile.

Credit: Olga Subach/Unsplash

While I was there, it was time to turn the lights off. All work stopped. The workers paused, turned toward the beams, and reflected for a moment as the sky became black again. I cried again for the loss of those eternal towers reaching through the sky, all the way to heaven.

It is all about the sky. And when I heard Bruce Springsteen’s tribute to that day, The Rising, I sat completely mesmerized. For he, too, knew about the sky. His lyrics represent the amazing progression we have been through:

Sky of blackness and sorrow

Sky of love, sky of tears

Sky of glory and sadness

Sky of mercy, sky of fear

Sky of memory and shadow

Sky of longing and emptiness

Credit: https://brucespringsteen.net/albums/the-rising

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross talked about stages of grief in concrete terms. In New York, the stages of grief, horror, loss, and eventually understanding are in the language of the sky. When I was in New York in September 2002, I saw a sky of longing and emptiness. May we all one day be able to see a sky of fullness and blessed life. Then, the sky will not be too blue. It will not be achingly blue as it is this year. It will be a rich, blue palette of hope and joy as we fondly remember the ebbing summer and look forward to all the new beginnings September has represented since we started a new grade at school…before the steel gray sky of winter returns.

It is now September 2021. We have been through at least two wars, four presidents, and differing memories every year approaching September 11. I always checked in with my friend as he moved through his own peace with the sky. This year is different yet again. We are in what seems to be a never-ending pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 650,000 of our fellow Americans — the numerical equivalent of 217 September 11ths. And New York City was once again ground zero for this different kind of attack on our nation. People were leaving the city as they did after the terror attack. But, as they proved in 2001, New Yorkers showed their resilience day after slogging day.

I am no longer an ER nurse and am close to retirement. I have not walked the streets of my beloved city in 10 years. But it is still all about the sky. My dear friend who escaped that day re-evaluated his life and now is teaching online from a getaway home on Cape Cod. And what does he post on Instagram? That’s right. Beautiful photos of the sky. For now, his sky is finally a sky of fullness and blessed life. My prayer for all the people who were touched personally by the events of September 11, 2001, is for you, too, to find your blessed sky.

Credit: Anonymous/Instagram