In New York, there were no revenge, retaliation messages

GUEST COLUMN

By: Janet Purcell
   I went to New York on Sept. 23.
   I don’t really know why except for the fact that I just felt I needed to. It was my mother’s city. She was born and raised in Manhattan and from when I was a little kid she took me there and I just learned to love it through her. I guess I’ve just been feeling a need to know I can still just get on a train and go and it will still be there. It also felt like when someone dies you need to go and pay your respects.
   I took the train in and the first thing I noticed as I came up from the tracks and into the main waiting room of Penn Station was the quiet. At first I just felt something was different and couldn’t pinpoint it. Then I realized that although there was the same volume of people milling about as any other Sunday morning, there was, maybe not silence, but definitely quiet. Not many people were talking and those that spoke to each other did so in soft voices. And there was dirge-like classical music playing on the sound system. The whole thing felt strange and oppressive.
   I bought a hot pretzel and went out and sat on the steps of Madison Square Garden which is something I often do when I go in to the city — just to soak in its energy before going off to whatever I’ve gone in to do. I noticed the same subdued atmosphere there I’d found in the station. I couldn’t actually call it quiet, but definitely different from normal. Subdued is the best word I can come up with.
   Still eating my pretzel, I started walking south. Very quickly I came upon Engine Company 24, a firehouse on 3lst Street between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue. It was draped in black and purple, the bay doors were open and it was full of flowers and candles and pictures of their firemen who died in the rescue effort. There were a lot of people milling around and, again, there was this sense of quiet and respect. I lingered reading messages, bios of the men who died, looking at pictures and mementos. Then I continued my trek south.
   All the street vendors are selling American flags, buttons, banners, etc. and, of course T-shirts of all kinds "commemorating" the event. I just joined the somber throng heading south and walked down to Union Square (Broadway and 14th) which is where the original blockades were placed … which caused the Union Square Park to become a living memorial. I’d read about it in the papers and felt a great need to go.
   The entire park is filled with flowers and candles and mementos and posters and photographs of those missing, including vital statistics and "please let us know if you’ve seen him/her" messages. One poignant one was of a sweet young woman in her wedding dress — taken August something. Another was a young guy holding his newborn baby — born Sept. 3! I walked silently with the people, stopping every few feet to read, see, feel the messages.
   When I arrived there was a fife and drum group from New England, in patriot dress, playing patriotic songs such as "Battle Hymn of the Republic." In another part of the park a string ensemble, mostly cello, just musicians dressed in jeans and T-shirts, was playing classical pieces. And in another part of the park there was a choral group of about 40 men of all ages from 25-ish to 60-ish that work for a company in Los Angeles. Their spokesman said, "We just had to come be with you" and they drove in a company bus across country. They sang inspirational songs such as "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America." Of course, we all sang with them, tears streaming down our faces.
   I had brought some things from home that I wanted to leave there —walked around with them not knowing where I would leave them, but knowing that when the "right" place revealed itself I’d know it. And sure enough, amidst all the other flowers and written messages, I saw a quote from Gandhi clumsily written on a torn piece of corrugated box that read, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." And another next to it saying, "War is not the answer." I knew I’d found my place. So I knelt in the crowd and laid my little things: a Jersey shore shell, a shell from near our house on Cape Cod, a stone from a Maine beach where my daughter lives and a stone I’d unearthed from under water in the Colorado River on the floor of the Grand Canyon this summer. I also had taken a small bunch of flowers from my backyard and a votive candle that I’d had all my married life. I laid them by the sign, lighted my candle and knelt for another minute or so in Quaker-type silence.
   I left my handwritten prayer-thoughts in a collection at the head of the square and walked a little farther south but knew that out of respect for the dead and missing, I would not go to ground zero. That was not my reason for being there. Some people did walk on, of course, but for the most part I watched people walk a short distance, as I did, and gaze south down Broadway — then turn quietly away. Those who say New Yorkers are pushy people need to change their thinking now. I’ve never been in the midst of a more considerate and outreaching group than I was that day. At one point I knelt to take a picture of a wall with pictures of missing people and candles with their red wax dripping like blood down over the pictures. I was so moved by it, I knelt there a minute longer with tears flowing and a man laid his hand on my shoulder and gently asked, "Family member?" When I said, "No," he kept his hand there a minute, then kind of rubbed my shoulder a bit and patted me and left. It was such a moment of complete understanding and tenderness.
   When I was walking back to the train I again came upon Fire Station 24 and this time it was filled with the firemen who work out of it — and people were shaking their hands and thanking them, hugging them. The firemen were happily posing for pictures holding little kids, standing with an arm over the shoulder of strangers, just being heroes. And the New Yorkers couldn’t get enough of it! It was an up-beat note on which to end my pilgrimage.
   What I came away with was that though we are grieving, the primary message was expressed loudly and clearly in New York — the people do not want war. Over and over again, all over the city, I read "War Is Not The Answer" and "Consider The Innocents" signs. I saw not even one "Kill The Bastards"-type sign. Not one. Given the fact that New Yorkers are known, by and large, to be a tough bunch, I expected to see Revenge and Retaliation posters all over the place — and I looked for them. They’re just not there. If only our leaders would go there and take the temperature of the people before we do anything drastic …
   
Janet Purcell is a resident of Hopewell Township and a special writer for the Hopewell Valley News.