I wish my father had saved
the shirt. It's what I would have done. I guess this is just one more
way that we were so different. I am a hoarder. One who saves things
to serve as a reminder. That is the origin of the word souvenir,
French for “I remember”. It is why I can't throw out things that
remind me of my parents ob”m. It's why my wife allows old furniture
from their house to sit, unused, in our basement. I guess I
understand why my father did not want to save the shirt, and remember
what he experienced on 9/11. It was another part of his life that he
was more than happy to leave behind, buried somewhere so deep, that
even he could rarely access it.
As soon as I heard about
the Twin Towers, I knew my father was there. Not in the building
itself, but in the vicinity. That part of Manhattan was not only a
place where, as a lawyer, he frequently worked. With its street
vendors and hustle and bustle, it was one of his favorite places in
the city. He was a block away when the first plane hit. Like a lot of
people, he turned to run. Only, as a very overweight, two-pack-a-day
smoker, running was a relative term. As the dark cloud which
contained all sorts of unspeakable things, headed for him, he quickly
lost his breath and became disoriented. Then, as if in a movie, a
door opened, and a stranger pulled him inside. Probably for the only
time in his life, my father entered the New York Stock Exchange. A
number of workers had seen him struggling, brought him inside to
catch his breath (did he, I wonder, paradoxically light up a
cigarette?) and, seeing how dirty his shirt was, handed him a clean
NYSE shirt to change into. After no doubt thanking them, he headed
back out, making it to safety thanks to the help of other strangers
along the way.
By the time I heard the
story, the shirt was gone. As with so many traumatic parts of his
life, he had no desire to hold onto it. So, like way too many
episodes from his life, what that day was really like for him, is
something I'm left wondering about. It wasn't just things he didn't
like to hold onto. From time to time he would share bits and pieces
from his childhood, little funny, or no-so-funny stories, but I was
mostly left to hear the rest, third-hand from other relatives, or to
fill it in with my imagination.
I suppose that's why I
like to save things so much, and why I like to write. I want to
remember. I want to tell. I want to know about the past. Sometimes,
all that survives is a shirt. Other times, it's just memories and the
imagination.
