Fallout

September 11, 2001 was supposed to be a very good day.  It was my mother’s seventieth birthday, and she and my father were scheduled to fly from their home in Colorado to New York City to celebrate with my sister, who lived on West 72^nd Street, a few blocks from the famous Museum of Natural History, where dioramas of early man invite young and old visitors to step into prehistoric times.  As my parents opened the trunk of their sedan to start to load their suitcases, their next door neighbor came running outside, to tell them, “You’re not going ANYWHERE!  The World Trade Towers have been struck by airplanes!.”  In utter disbelief, they went back inside and turned on the television, to discover that America’s worst nightmare, a terrorist attack on our own soil had come to pass.

Because my mother did not get to go to New York to celebrate her birthday with champagne and a Broadway musical, she stayed home and scheduled her overdue mammogram.  Shockingly, because she had not palpated a lump, the mammogram showed a small tumor in the upper outer quadrant of her left breast. The biopsy was positive for invasive ductal cancer, and she had a lumpectomy and axillary node dissection, followed by radiation therapy.  The cancer was Stage I.  Eleven years later, she is cured.  Perhaps it is just a coincidence that she “remembered” to schedule her mammogram the day after 9/11 but I don’t think so.  I think that sitting at home, watching human beings falling from buildings and wives crying over lost husbands, and firefighters standing helplessly as the buildings themselves collapsed, their brethren inside, gave my mother a tiny premonition, a chilly little reminder that we are all mortal, and that we should never forget it and always take care.

On the day before the eleventh anniversary of 9/11,  there was finally fall out from that day that was eagerly welcomed by many:  The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act was expanded to include compensation for 58 different types of cancers potentially caused by exposure to toxic fumes and chemicals, exposures which were particularly intense for first responders and survivors at the scene, but which also affected the search and rescue volunteers and the clean up crews.  The Zadroga Act, passed by Congress in December 2010, and signed by President Barack Obama in January 2011, was named after a New York City Police Officer who died at age 34 of lung disease attributed to working around toxins at Ground Zero. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lauded the additional coverage, stating “Tomorrow we will remember those we lost to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and also those who bravely responded during and after the tragedy.”

I have not been to Ground Zero since the attack.  But I have dreamed of that place many times since that day.  In my dream, there is a stairway that rises naked from the ashes, and reaches the clouds where it disappears.  At the bottom of the stairway, there is a policemen, standing feet apart, one hand to his mouth where he blows a whistle whose noise pierces the dust and smoke, the other hand pointing the way OUT for the survivors.  Coming down the stairs, there are two men descending very slowly, because they are between them carrying a tiny elderly woman in her wheelchair. And just above them, on their way up, their faces lined with determination, are two firemen in full gear, hurrying skyward with no hesitation whatsoever.