Someone mentioned to me the other day, "it seems like a long time since y'all have put anything up on your blog." Ok, that's not true. We took a trip and I thought that it's been a long time since we put anything up. And I'm reading this book about story and thought it would make for a better story if someone else suggested I write about our trip. The rest of this will be true and real...promise.
If you're reading this you probably know that Lindsay's crazy go nuts for musicals. Watching them, singing songs from them, being in them, whatever. So in trying to come up with something original and unique for Christmas, a trip to New York and a Broadway show came to mind. Clearly (to me) this was God encouraging me to pursue my wife's heart because volunteering to go to New York City is something I would have never....ever...ever done otherwise. I told Lindsay about a year ago that I would lay down my life for her. Shortly after that, I heard a voice say, "Then why don't you?" So this is was me trying to actually do that.
It was a hit. When she figured out (Christmas morning) where were going, she teared up a little bit. Before we even packed our bags, it was already worth it. We get up there and it takes (literally) 2 1/2 hours to get from the Newark airport to our hotel. Not a great start. The weather started out chilly and turned to brutally, unforgiving-ly cold (wind chill of 2 degrees on Tuesday). We threw our bags in the room and walked a couple of blocks down to Times Square. Good....Lord. I'll be honest, everything I was afraid I wasn't going to like about New York City, was right here. And to be fair, it wasn't the natives. It was the tourists (darn them). Here's my impression of Times Square: one big freakin', continuous billboard. Good thing we did some other stuff while we were there.
The next day we went up to Central Park. To give you some perspective, Central Park is probably bigger than my hometown. Let alone the rest of the city. Anyway, it's huge. We only covered half of it. You really do almost forget (just for a moment) what surrounds you on each side of the park. Then you pick a direction, look up, and see skyscraper after skyscraper and it all comes back to you. After finding as many movie landmarks as we could think of ("When Harry Met Sally"), we headed back to the south end of the city. Next on our sightseeing list was something I was never sure how to feel about seeing.
That is the skeleton of what will be the biggest statement a building has ever made. I wasn't sure what to do. The entire time we had been in the city, before we even crossed the bridge into the state, I kept seeing it happen. "I wonder what it looked like from here?" "I wonder what it was like to stand here and watch it?" "What if you were driving this way and saw it, what would've gone through your mind?" One of my only regrets about going to New York City is that I didn't go (chose not to go) before. I saw it on tv. I still see it in my mind, but I wished I had seen it before, so I could truly understand what's missing. Tollie understands what's missing. He was a volunteer in the memorial museum right across the street from where they stood. By the way, being down there and seeing just how cramped together everything is, how it didn't take out everything in sight, is one of the ways that I know God really was there, even though it's easy to miss Him through it. Anyway, Tollie wasn't there that day. His brother was. Tollie was a fireman and part of the clean-up/recovery effort. He came Friday the 14th. Lindsay told him about her dad and how he was a volunteer fireman back home, and his 60th birthday was coming up. I asked if volunteering in the memorial...museum for lack of a better word...helped. He said it depends on the day. He told us about the one time he was leading a tour. He stopped to point out something on the tour and when he turned, he saw it. He saw the mountain of...think of the worst thing imaginable....that's what it was a mountain of. And the people on the tour stood there and waited, while he went through this flashback. A moment or two later, he resumed. He understands too damn well. Earlier when I mentioned wondering what it looked like from different angles, I can't help but think of one guy who made it out. Who looked up from his work and saw this plane bearing down on him. Part of the wing sliced through his office. I bet there are days he wonders if surviving, trying to sleep with that vision really was a blessing. You move through this museum where there's a time line of that day and the bombing in '93. Then there's a room where they've displayed some of the things recovered. A spoon from one of the restaurants inside, a flier for something, and elevator button, a window to one of the planes. Yeah. There's a window frame to one of the planes on display. Imagine looking out that window, and realizing, it's over. Then in that same room is a fire suit. It is torn down the right shoulder. From the shoulder all the way down to the bottom. That's how the body was found. If you think reading this is graphic, if you think seeing it in a museum is graphic, try being Tollie. Try being in his mind during one of his flashbacks. That's graphic. But it's important. I'm not one of those who thinks you should watch it everyday to remind yourself of the lesson we supposedly learned (and have seemingly totally forgotten-the one about loving each other more). It's important because there are stories to be told. Stories cut short. Stories of amazing survival and miraculous second chances. Stories of unimaginable pain. New York is not a city that is defined by what happened on that day. The day after or the day after. New York is defined by the fact that 10 years later, they're well underway with rebuilding. More than just a building. I shook Tollie's hand as he walked out the door, he remembered to wish my father-in-law a happy upcoming 60th birthday. I thought as he left the room and that particular scene in our lives, "of all the things for him to remember, he remembered that Larry's turning 60 this year. That must've been a nice little escape for him. I hope the rest of his memories become that easy to live with."
