Anniversaries of those we lost are even harder through the fog of #COVID19. Dad would have been 82 today. 19 years ago, he came to Chicago to celebrate w my young children. We had to do it a day early - I had a trip to NY. Had a conference I had worked on. Picked the location.
He took me to the airport. It is something he did, even though I could have gotten their on my own. He liked to drive - cars were his life - and it gave him time with talk with me. We had some of our most important and difficult conversations, sitting side by side in a car.
He told me that he had his “best birthday ever.” He often said that about events that included me and the kids. It was intense but I understand it differently through the lens of a pandemic. It was his way of holding onto the joy of a moment that might too quickly pass.
He was nervous. He didn’t like flying - was always worried the plane would crash. It was an obsession. He had a lot of those. Another was instability in the Middle East. He was convinced we would suffer a terrorist attack. Worried about it since I was a kid...
Three days later I realized his fear as I fled the World Trade Center with my colleagues. Two days after that I used the last of my cell phone battery to call my dad again in the wee hours of the morning. The car a colleague and I escaped Manhattan from had broken down.
I knew he would come. He had a bag packed the moment he heard what happened. I was still four hours from home but only 45 minutes from him. He came faster than that. I have no idea how fast he drove. This time we didn’t talk. He let me sit in the silence of my shock and grief.
He took me home to my kids. My young son wrapped his little arms around me. I picked up my daughter from school - I dropped to my knees as she came running into my arms. That is when I was still “Mommy!” I didn’t cry until I got home.
I escaped the World Trade Center and with it carried the souls who lost their lives with me. We have lost so many more to the pandemic. Thank you dad for being there then and for reminding me how important it is to mark our moments of joy. I celebrate this day of your birth.
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