No explanation for the unexplainable
By: Hank Kalet
A chill ran up my spine when I saw it.
It was during the CBS documentary, "9/11," that aired Sunday, an elevator opens and a group of people hurry out, escaping the fate that was to befall far too many that September day. And there was Keith, a friend from high school, standing in front of the camera for a brief moment before fleeing the building.
It was a defining moment for me in what was a powerful documentary, one that highlighted the commitment and dedication of the emergency service workers who flocked to the scene.
The documentary, which included the only footage shot inside the towers on Sept. 11, was sometimes difficult to watch, bringing back some of the sensations the fear and anger, the shock and awe that I felt the morning when the Twin Towers ceased to be. Seeing the planes hit, seeing the smoke, the faces of the crowd, the heroism of the firefighters, the aftermath, it all came back.
It was difficult to watch at times, so immediate yet so removed by time and technology. The sounds of the bodies falling and landing, the sickening thud they made and the way the firefighters inside the tower’s lobby winced with each new fall words do not do it justice. One of the firefighters summed it up by asking how awful must it be on the upper floors if jumping to certain death was deemed a better option.
The whole thing was eerie. And then, there was Keith.
Back in September, I had heard from a friend who told me Keith had been in the building. I didn’t think much about it at the time it was just another in a long line of survivor stories that were making the rounds.
But seeing Keith standing there, even for such a brief moment, reminded me as to how much a role luck played in the day’s events, in deciding who was to live and who was to die.
While the terror attacks were no accident (they were a premeditated act of mass murder set in motion by a group of religious fascists), the fact that Keith made it out and so many others didn’t can only be attributed to luck.
Keith was one of two people I knew from high school to be in the towers on Sept. 11. He was the lucky one. Mukul never made it out.
That juxtaposition, to me, puts the issue in stark relief. Two South Brunswick High School graduates, Class of 1980, working in the World Trade Center on the day the towers came down; one makes it out, the other doesn’t. And no explanation for it, really.
Take this a step further, Mukul was in just his second day on the job, having moved back East to be closer to his parents (according to The New York Times). If the attacks had taken place a week earlier or he had started work a week later well, that’s not what happened.
Then there is the story Toyena Skinner, a Kingston resident who was to leave her job at the trade center Sept. 14 but never came home. Her fiancé, Jason Sherman, had left his job in the trade center just 18 days earlier.
And how do you explain that Engine Company 7, Ladder 1, the one featured in the "9/11" documentary, was the only ladder company in the city not to lose any firefighters? A total of 343 firefighters died that day, but none from Engine 7, Ladder 1.
Or that the first plane hit at 8:46 a.m. shortly before the work day began, meaning there were probably a smaller number of workers in the towers than there would have been if it had hit, say, an hour later.
I am not a believer in divine providence, in the notion of a divinity that seeks to micromanage the world. We govern our own actions here on earth and God judges them accordingly.
To say, as I’ve heard too many people say, that God was looking out for them is, to me, an unintended slap at the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives that day. The explanation is there is no explanation.
The only lesson I can take from all of this is that there is a thin line between survival and death, that any one of us could have found ourselves on the wrong side of that line and it is imperative that we make the most of our time here while we can.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of The South Brunswick Post. He can be reached at [email protected].