Healing From 9/11 by Helping Others

La’Toya Richardson couldn’t grasp the magnitude of what her eyes were seeing.

September 11th, 2001, started like any normal day for the then 17-year-old Richardson. She was riding the subway to her high school in Manhattan when all the train services where suddenly suspended. When she came above ground, she saw the first tower with flames and smoke billowing out of the windows. “I thought that maybe a small plane had accidentally crashed into one of the towers, and they were evacuating everyone as a safety precaution,” she said.

In the chaos that followed, she knew she needed to get home. Like hundreds of others, she crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot trying to walk back home. It was at this moment she realized that this wasn’t just a small accident. It was much worse. She saw the sign “Watchtower” across the bridge and instantly headed for it. She later took refuge inside one of the buildings owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses at the time. “The lobby was flooded with people coming off the street. They were giving everyone bottles of water and sandwiches”, she recalled.

Twenty years after 9/11, Richardson, now living in Louisville, MS, has never forgotten those chaotic events. “I was scared to get on the train or the bus. I was scared to go back to Manhattan.” Like so many others who experienced the events of that day firsthand, she was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome.

Relief came through prayer, daily Bible reading, and reaching out to help others who were struggling like her.

The ministry that she had shared in as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses took on a new role for her and many others. Richardson had engaged for years in the door-to-door ministry for some time, but felt that finding a listening ear was challenging at times. Not so after 9/11. “Everyone wanted to talk. It was a topic on everyone’s minds.”

Helping others has long been linked to better emotional well-being in psychology research. The book “The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others” describes “powerful” effects, even for helpers who’ve experienced trauma themselves.

Trauma was all too common among the many volunteers at Ground Zero. Roy Klingsporn, a Brooklynite who volunteered at Ground Zero nearly every day for two months, recalled on one occasion approaching a man who sat slouched in a golf cart near the site's makeshift morgue.

“When I asked him how he was doing, he burst into tears,” said Klingsporn, now of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “He said, ‘I’m tired of picking up body parts.’”

Within days of the attacks, Jehovah’s Witnesses set up teams that spent hours each day in Lower Manhattan, Bible in hand, consoling everyone from the families of victims to first responders battling physical and emotional exhaustion. It was a work that changed how the organization approaches disasters, with an organized comfort ministry now being an integral part of its response to natural disasters and even the pandemic.

Recalling the gut-wrenching days he spent as one of those volunteers near the smoldering remains of the Twin Towers still stirs deep feelings in Robert Hendriks.

“It was very emotional and extremely difficult for me, but the faces of those I passed on the street said it all,” said Hendriks, now U.S. spokesman for the Witnesses. “They needed comfort, and the best thing I could give them was a hug and a scripture.”

For Brown “Butch” Payne, the events of September 11, 2001, tore open old wounds, bringing back vivid wartime memories the Vietnam veteran had tried to forget.

From his East Village apartment, Payne recalled the crowds of frantic people streaming north from Lower Manhattan. “That sight stirred up a lot of emotions in me,” he said. “It shook me to the core.”

Payne found relief in rendering aid the best way he knew how. “Sharing the Bible’s message of hope softened the blow for me,” he said.

Offering a shoulder to cry on brought Klingsporn comfort too. “It was satisfying to be of help to my community,” he said.

Like Klingsporn, Richardson continues to find comfort from reaching out — although now doing so through letters and telephone calls instead of going door to door. Jehovah’s Witnesses paused their in-person preaching in response to the pandemic in March 2020.

Richardson has suffered the loss of close family members since that day 20 years ago. She is convinced, however, that helping others has ultimately helped her too. Sharing the Bible’s hope with others “reinforces in me that traumatic events like 9/11 and losing our loved ones will one day be a thing of the past.”

Payne echoes those feelings. In 2016, after 50 years of marriage, he lost his beloved wife to cancer. On days when his grief feels overwhelming, Payne writes heartfelt letters that lift his neighbors’ spirits — and his own. He shares scriptures and resources that have helped him, like articles on coping with trauma and loss on jw.org, the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“Encouraging others to look to the future helps me to do the same,” he said.