The morning the planes hit the towers in NY city, I was at my local bakery, in my PJs, as usual. Bleary eyed, I just wanted coffee. One of my customers from the restaurant looked distraught and said "it's so hard to believe isn't it?", I just numbly nodded. She was right, Tuesday mornings are ridiculously hard to believe.
When I got home and was working on my child development assignment, my friend called to tell me about the attack in NY. She knew I was clueless and needed to be told these things. I'm glad she did so I didn't continue to look like a fool the rest of the day when customers told me about the events.
I worked the lunch shift that day. It was not that busy. I guess people were crowded around the TVs at work watching and ordering in pizza.
At about 1:30, a volunteer from some charity came in looking for donations. She asked for a glass of water. Something seemed wrong. I asked if she was ok and she started to cry. Instinctively we hugged until she was OK to sit down. She told me her brother works in the Trade Centre in NY and she had no idea if he was safe or not. Terrifying. I got her the glass of water, held her hand for a moment or two, murmured the usual "don't paint pictures before you know the truth", and "remember he can't call out right now, he may be safe", then let her be. She was calmer when she left a short while later.
This was one of those "I should be a doctor moments".
The restaurant I was working in was run by a Chilean woman. She was a strong independent refugee from the other September 11. The stories she told me about Pinochet were terrifying. She was identified as a radical because she taught her neighbours how to grow vegetables, eat nutritious food on a shoe string budget and how to cook tasty dinners. She had a house full of children and a husband who lived elsewhere so soldiers assumed she had a gun in the house and abused her in front of her children. I don't see the logic in that, but maybe I'm not crazy enough. With her family and neighbours, she sat in the national soccer stadium and watched as those she loved were murdered in front of her then carried out to a mass grave.
I learned about PTSD and survivor guilt from this woman. She didn't realise she was teaching me these lessons because she didn't know and wouldn't acknowledge, that she was suffering.
When Pinochet died of a heart attack at 91, I was reminded that only the good die young. He had dementia in his last years, didn't stand trial for his crimes. I wonder if he ever knew the damage he caused so many Chileans.
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