On this day of remembrance, I wanted to just say that I am still so sad about what transpired on that fateful day. We know exactly where we were, how we felt and most of all, how it would deeply alter our psyche as Americans and brothers. As a Muslim woman who was raised here from the age of 9 months, I felt shame when we learned what had happened. And pride for being an American, and above all, a wounded New Yorker who knew that we would survive - then unite. Although I am beyond disgusted as to how our federal government has handled such a tragedy, I am deeply moved by how New Yorkers - and all Americans - felt soon after the attacks.

The last time I was in the Towers was when Kurt and I took my father-in-law to dinner up at one of the restaurants a friend was waitering in. It wasn’t Windows… a new one that I can’t even remember the name of now. Cliff, my father-in-law wanted so badly to go to the towers for dinner. With my fear of heights I was skeptical, but I acquiesced and went.

So there we were at the top of the world. I felt dizzy the entire time, but the boys loved it. It was nighttime, the sky was clear and a helicopter whizzed by. Before leaving I got up and walked to the tall windows and looked down thinking this is my worst nightmare, but damn, what an amazing view! The city was twinkling like a million stars were sprinkled down onto the landscape. The only other time I’d been up there was as a tourguide, showing family and friends around. Nighttime is different - it’s stunning, glorious and breathtaking. You realized up there, looking down, simply what a miraculous marvel New York really is.

I conceived my child two days later on September 13th (I learned a month later). I found out in whilst placing flowers at the local fire department who had lost 18 out of 20 men. I was hit by a car driving the wrong direction while crossing the street with daisies in my hand. At the hospital I learned I was pregnant. And although it should have been an awful thing - I took it as a beautiful thing.

From sadness comes healing. From death comes life. I touched my belly at the hospital and I knew the world was different from that moment on for so many reasons.

I was not hurt in the accident. I got the night off from bartending and my husband and I giggled a lot. We had been crying and sad for so long up until that point. I chose the name “Baris” as my son’s middle name, “Peace,” in Turkish. Although he hates his middle name because it’s not some gentrified American name like the kids have in his Kindergarten class, but I know he will come to love it more than the first some day. Because he was brought into this world to prove to those that did this that Americans continue to grow, love, prosper and so much more than they will never know.

That smell that permeated New York’s downtown for months will stay with me forever. The images of pictures on every available wall of missing loved ones. The Falling Man photo that still haunts me, bless that man’s soul to heaven. But we are stronger now as New Yorkers, and I hope as Americans.

I wanted to end this post with a favorite poem of mine by Rainer Maria Rilke that I dedicate to Eric Allen, a bar patron of mine in NY, a great actor and a brave firefighter. Throughout the year, Eric comes to mind, but so much so today.

I am not a Buddhist, but these words have always calmed me in times of loss and mourning:

Buddha in Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

————————————————-

Eric Allen

All the Right Things

Here are some ways that a short man got by:

Eric Allen was diligent, determined and headstrong. He was so tough, so capable, that it would never occur to people to look down on him, a 5-foot-5 tower of gym-rat power.

He knew how to size up potential trouble quickly and dodge it adroitly. Once, while driving cross-country with his buddy Joe Ruggiero, the two walked into a bar on the Texas-Oklahoma border and, in the blinding daylight, saw half a dozen oversized cowboys playing dominoes.

“Drinks for everyone on us!” shouted Mr. Allen, buying a barfull of friends.

The short guy cast a long shadow: Mr. Allen, 44, was a ubiquitous, modest Mr. FixIt for friends and the elderly in his Bay Ridge, Brooklyn neighborhood.

His motto was “Do the right thing,” which for him meant taking extra courses to be eligible for the hazardous duties of Rescue Squad 18 of Manhattan.

He was a sweetie with a crust, a shy man who loved acting.

As he drove on jaunts to the country with his wife, Angelica (whom he nicknamed Schnauzer) and their 3-year-old, Kathleen (whom he nicknamed Mouse) he would make up songs about how much he loved them, yelping happily.

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on March 10, 2002.

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