A reflection on 9/11, trauma, and the long, faithful road of healing.
Here I sit twenty-five years later, in one sense living a completely different life. I'm far away from NYC now, with five kids, sitting this morning in my little quiet, tucked-away she-shed.
And yet this morning, twenty-five years ago, shook me to my core.
That Day
I was the native small-town girl in the big city. Within minutes that morning, I saw terror. I saw destruction. I heard chaos. I saw people running for their lives. I saw the second plane turn into the second tower.
I fled and ran.
There are moments of that day still so vivid, and moments I simply do not remember. I don't remember my run from Midtown to Penn Station. I do remember the shoving and the pushing, everyone so scared, scrambling to get out of the city. I remember the people on the train — it was the last one to leave the city, and we did everything we could to get as many people on board as possible.
In that moment, no one cared about personal space. We cared for the person next to us, because we were all seeking the same thing: safety.
What My Body Still Holds
Today my body remembers this day. Some years have passed without much coming to the surface, but not this year. I feel so much grief and sorrow.
Having walked the healing journey from this trauma, I know today, sitting in my she-shed, that I am safe right here where I am. I also know to honor my body and the story it will forever hold.
The Years That Followed
The years following that day were marked with the imprint of this trauma, which came only a few years after another trauma that shook me differently. Put together, the two solidified something in my mind and heart: nowhere was safe, and no one could be trusted.
I didn't know it then, but I've come to understand it about myself since — the masking, the dissociating, the doing things I thought I'd never do. It was all a way to run from the inner turmoil that haunted me most days.
To walk through this world afraid that another sudden attack would hit. To walk through this world believing no one was safe, because people I trusted had taken something precious from me. To walk through this world afraid to use my voice, out of fear of being ridiculed, or worse, threatened.
Running a Different Way
But by God's mercy, I am here, running in a different way than I did twenty-five years ago.
I've been running to the hard places — the hardest places of my soul — to rediscover who I was before the trauma, to find rest and peace, and to find that there are safe people in this world who can be trusted, who can be a community that holds you up and that you hold up in return.
I still battle with the imprint of trauma. But today I stand as a trauma survivor, no longer haunted by the events, but able to honor and respect them as things that happened — and to offer myself compassion when their imprint surfaces in my life.
If You're Walking Through Something Today
Wherever you are, whatever you are feeling and battling, know there is a way to heal — to reclaim the beauty of the parts of your life that fell to ashes.
God never left me. He was with me on this day twenty-five years ago. He was the one who carried me to safety. He was there in and through it all. And even when I was so angry with Him for allowing these stories of trauma into my life, He was still there — not judging me, not casting me away, but tenderly holding me as I grieved all that had been taken from me.
He is faithful. He restores. He rescues. He redeems it all.
