When The World Turns Upside Down

So many others have written about this day far more eloquently than I ever could. 

For each of us in our own way, today marks the 5th anniversary of the day the world completely feel apart, turned on its axis and came back together in an entirely new way.

Each year on September 11th, I marvel at the craziness of life.  Five years ago today I was stuck in the chasm between horror, shock and sadness and relief and gratitude.  It’s the space in between these emotions that I’m still grappling with.  Even now, I’m trying to regain my footing.

Living on the west coast, I slept through most of it.  I was not at work that day, because it was three days before BeBop and I were supposed to get married. We were leaving the next day for Yosemite, so Tuesday I was meeting my sister at a San Francisco spa to get my nails done.  I woke up to seven voice mail messages, which was odd even given the upcoming festivities.  The first three were from my Mom, BeBop’s sister and his parents in Philadelphia.  A couple more were from friends on the east coast and in Washington, DC, where I lived before coming back to San Francisco.

Listening to the jumble of words, turning on the TV and trying to comprehend what had already happened was impossible.  My brain could not process that much horrible information and it literally took me several moments to begin thinking clearly.

Like everyone that morning, I was struck by the unimaginable horror of what had transpired.  I sat glued to my TV the entire day, while BeBop was at school and largely unaware of the scope of the tragedy.  My Mom called to suggest that I drive down to my parents’ house and evacuate the city, since at that point no one knew what was coming next.  I decided to stay home and wait for BeBop.

We had friends and family flying from New York, Boston and DC that day.  Several were coming out to California early to visit before the wedding in Yosemite National Park.  Some had their flights canceled, others were mid-air when the hijackings occurred and were diverted to airports all over the country.  My cousin and his wife were on a plane that was ordered to land in a small Midwestern town.  The airport barely had a runway long enough to accommodate a huge jet.  Once they landed, the plane was surrounded by an armed SWAT team.  Again, at that point no one knew what was happening or what might happen next.

It was not until the following day that we started to think about our wedding, now two days away.  Friends from DC called to say they didn’t feel safe flying, and since they had planned on leaving their small daughter at home they didn’t feel as though they could leave her and fly to the west coast. BeBop’s parents and sister were frantically trying to figure out when the airports would re-open so they could fly out.  Thankfully, we finally heard from friends and other family members that everyone was safe.

As Wednesday morning turned into afternoon, more and more people called to say they couldn’t get a flight out in time, and they weren’t sure it was safe to fly anyway.  We understood and told everyone we probably would have felt the same way.  We were most concerned about my future in-laws.  We didn’t think they could fly to San Francisco and get to Yosemite in time.

Throughout the day, the local news was carrying a story about a young woman from San Francisco who had been in New York City for a meeting on the 11th, in the World Trade Center.  She was recently married and they kept showing her wedding photo —  and she was beautiful.  Just shining in a white veil and bright smile and you could tell from looking at that picture that it honestly was the best day of her entire life.  Her husband was trying desperately to get on the first flight out of San Francisco, heading to New York to find her.  He was sure she was still alive.  They played a voice mail message she left for him when the first plane struck. With the time difference he was sleeping and hadn’t answered his phone. She said she was fine, that something had happened but that they were evacuating the building.  She said she loved him.

They must have showed her wedding photo a thousand times that day.

Towards the end of Wednesday, BeBop and I started talking about what to do.  Along with everyone else, we were still in shock and it took a while for it to sink in that we were to be married in two days. 

We had spent nine months planning our dream wedding in a beautiful national park.  There is a small chapel in the middle of a green meadow, surrounded on all sides by dramatic granite rock faces.  The ceremony was going to be in the chapel, much of it traditional but it was me getting married after all, so we threw in a Hindu ritual as part of the ceremony.  We were to say vows to one another and then walk in a small circle hand-in-hand which would etch these vows into the earth.  At the end, we would walk back down the aisle to Natalie Cole’s This Will Be (An Everlasting Love).

We started thinking about how sad that day would be.  The nation (and much of the world) was in mourning, and to ask people to be happy for us seemed inappropriate.  We worried that it might be in bad taste to try to celebrate after such loss.  And we were afraid that BeBop’s family would miss the wedding, since they were still not able to confirm a flight out of Philly.  We were concerned about asking friends to fly when we knew they were scared.

And so, on Wednesday night, we decided to cancel the wedding.  In the midst of grief and sadness over the staggering loss of life, we felt a personal loss.  But we also felt such gratitude and relief that our friends and family members were safe.  It is this bizarre spectrum of feelings that I can still experience as I think about those days five years ago.

Against the backdrop of feeling sorry for myself, I would see the beautiful bride on the news.  She would instantly remind me of how lucky I was.  As the days passed, it was clear her husband would not find her.  They had just started their life together, and now hers was over much too soon.  Her husband would give anything, I was sure, just to have her safe and sound in their San Francisco apartment.  He would gladly cancel a stupid wedding if it meant he could live a long and happy life with his bride.  So I tried to keep perspective, I tried to keep my balance.

But to be perfectly honest, I was also terribly saddened and disappointed that my wedding was off.  I know that sounds selfish and self-centered, and it was.  And it still is.  When I go to friends’ weddings and think, to this day, they got to have their dream weddings, why not me?  I cringe at my own ugliness and pettiness.

We created a phone tree and family and close friends called over 100 people and told them the wedding was off.  Most were relieved. No one wanted to celebrate a new beginning and no one wanted to turn a wedding into a wake and there didn’t seem to be anything in between.

In a clearly misguided decision, BeBop and I ended up going to Yosemite anyway, to escape the "I’m so sorry" calls.  I spent the entire time crying, watching CNN, and on the 14th marking each passing minute with a running commentary about what I would have been doing then.  Now I’d be having breakfast with my sister.  Now I’d be getting my hair and make up done.  Now I’d be getting my wedding picture taken. Now we’d be exchanging our vows.

And I hated myself each time I had one of these thoughts. I’m lucky!  I should be grateful we’re all safe.  This is nothing compared to the loss that so many thousands of people are facing!

And this went on and on, this back and forth between sadness and self-pity and relief and gratitude.  I would descend into depression, thinking of what I had missed, and then jerk myself up out of it and struggle to regain my footing. I thought often of the bride and wondered what had happened to her husband once he got to New York, only to learn the incomprehensible truth that so few in the Twin Towers survived and that his new wife was among the dead.

We ended up having a tiny ceremony at the end of November, in a church in the city after a torrential rainstorm.  We invited only 15 guests, just our immediate family and some close friends.  We had to tell many close friends they were not included.

We had dinner at a local hotel instead of a reception and no wedding cake.  We went to the Starlight Room to go dancing, and in another moment of complete idiocy I decided to wear my wedding dress and veil.  Supposedly the band, called the Starlight Orchestra, would play the Standards, which sounded fitting for a wedding reception.  But when our first dance was to "Who Let The Dogs Out" I realized I had made a(nother) terrible mistake.  Sweaty strangers danced around our little group, staring at my dress and veil. Some wished us luck.  Someone spilled a drink on my dress during a rousing rendition of "She’s A Brick House" and then it was time to go home. 

We never went on a honeymoon because our trip to Mexico in September was canceled.  Who wants to go on a honeymoon before you’re married?  We thought we would plan something after the rescheduled wedding, but then it was the holidays and we didn’t have the energy to plan anything at that point.  And then?  If you wait too long after the wedding, it’s not a honeymoon. Just a very expensive vacation.

So although it pains me to say all of that, it’s true.  I feel horrible and infantile and selfish when I mourn the loss of a wedding — a day for crissakes — when so many lost their loved ones, their livelihoods, their way of life. Their feeling of safety and security in this world. I struggle with feeling sorry for myself and then feeling horrible for feeling sorry for myself and then I feel grateful and blessed and very, very lucky.  All in a span of seconds.  I have whiplash.

Each day when September 11th comes around, I try to gain perspective and realize that maybe it’s okay to have a wide spectrum of emotions.  That maybe we all constantly strive to regain our equilibrium minute by minute. It’s that range of emotions that makes us human.

So today I’m depressed and full of grief for the tremendous loss so many people suffered.  I’m sad that my dream wedding never happened and that we started our married life together under such a dark cloud.  But I’m so grateful we were able to start our life together.  I feel blessed that our friends and family were safe.  I find myself in this chasm between grief and sadness and relief and gratitude and think that maybe, just maybe that’s what life is all about.  Trying to keep our footing when the world turns upside down.