Memories

by Amy White
September 11, 2001 (www.slowtwitch.com)

I am listening to the news here, and I am finding that words are inadequate. But I am going to try to tell you a story that only skims the surface of the deep, deep sadness I feel today.

I went to college in New York City. I lived in that city for six years, first in my college’s neighborhood, in upper Manhattan, and later, after I graduated, in Brooklyn. Usually this makes people laugh, the image of me living in Brooklyn. But I loved New York, and I still do. I had the chance to go back and visit in ’97, a visit that confirmed that the city was still its wonderful and wacky self.

When I watched those towers, those beautiful landmarks that anchor lower Manhattan, collapse onto themselves this morning, tears leapt into my eyes. I used to work in lower Manhattan, and I am certain I have friends and acquaintances who work there now. Worked there, I suppose I should say, since those buildings don’t exist anymore and that neighborhood is forever altered.

But I want to tell you a story, and I am getting away from my point.

One of my friends in college was a brash and funny guy from Boston. He had Kennedy good looks—a label it seems only Massachusetts boys get tagged with—but in this case it was true. Brown hair, blue eyes, tall and athletic, smart and funny, he had all the adjectives. We lost touch over the years, but I want to tell you a story about him, in case the unspeakable has happened to him.

I want to remember, but remembering him is almost unbearable today.

One day, long after we’d graduated, he told me this tale: He was eating lunch in midtown Manhattan with a woman from his office. A secretary, I think. Suddenly, their lunch was interrupted: Her purse had been stolen. My friend saw the thief running out of the restaurant and down the street with it, so he leapt from his chair and gave chase. He raced after this guy through the lunchtime crowds, eventually tackling him in front of a cheering crowd of onlookers. He was a streetside Manhattan hero.

I cry as I write this because I remember how hard I laughed when he told me this story, long-distance, in the seemingly annual phone calls we’d have to catch up with each other. It was something that was just so…him. I could see it in my mind as I listened to the story, told in his usual, funny way—a great storytelling manner that reminded me of another famous Massachusetts icon, Tip O’Neill. A few years ago those calls dwindled and we just lost touch, the way these things happen with friends separated by distance and the passage of time.

Did I mention he grew up to be a stockbroker? I wonder, as I sit here on a beautiful California fall afternoon, what he was doing today—if he's still in New York. Whether he was working, whether he was downtown, whether he is OK.

If, heaven forbid, he found himself in lower Manhattan today, I can imagine him doing whatever he could to help anyone who would’ve needed it. I can see him being calm amid the insanity around him. People who were near him would’ve been lucky. A Manhattan hero was in their midst.

I don’t know why I tell you this, except to say this: Hold the ones you love close to your heart. Don’t let time or distance separate you. Remember the great stories. Remember the smiles. Remember how you laughed.

This is a small story. It's insigificant to everyone in this world except me. So why do I share it? Because the world is made of these sorts of insignificant stories; lives and memories are built of this fragile, gossamer stuff.

Right now, I feel like these wisps of memories, these fragments of moments, are all I have of my friends and my time in the world's greatest city. And I am holding them as close to me as I can, as if they were spun from gold.

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