When Death Touched

More than most, I think, I woke up on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, believing it would be an ordinary day. After my Monday, Tuesday had to be dull. Here's my story: Sunday night, I was asleep--dead asleep. Just moments before midnight, Big Guy burst open the bedroom door. "Call 911. Al had a heart attack," he said. Before I could pull myself awake, Big Guy left. I slipped on my flip-flops, and in my nightgown, fled across the street to Al's house. As his wife watched, I dialed 911. Big Guy pounded on Al's chest, vainly willing his worn out heart to restart. A firetruck and an ambulance arrived. Al was dead. He'd probably been dead from the moment the heart attack happened. I called the neighbors' parish priest. Then Big Guy and I sat with the newly made widow at the kitchen table. We waited: For the priest to arrive; for the body to be cared for; for the fire truck to leave. The kitchen clock ticked past 1 a.m. And somewhere in that time of waiting, two barefoot, p.j. clad, rumple-haired souls wandered through the silent chaos of a crisis stilled. Birdie and Daisy woke up, found their parents gone, saw the ambulance outside, then wandered hand-in-hand across the street. Big Guy and I explained that Mr. Al died. I led them home and tucked them into bed. Today, death touched them, I thought. Just one day later, the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon cracked open and a Pennsylvania field morphed into a crater. And death, this time as an abstract, touched my children again.