Turn Your Heart Toward Home

Turn Your Heart Toward Home

In 2002, Bob and I toured Ground Zero in New York City with my cousin Stephen an eyewitness to the event that has so changed our world. As we circled the hole where the Twin Towers once soared above the city, Stephen recalled the terror and chaos he’d experienced that day. As we walked with him, I remembered too.

The sky dawned blue and clear and the day began as any other day. At school, we teachers stood in the hallway and sang our good mornings as the students filed in. We greeted them with smiles like any other day.  

About 9:30, the whispering began. Something had happened. A plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. We shivered but continued teaching. The teachers whispered to each other so the children wouldn’t hear, so we wouldn’t frighten them.  

As I listened to Stephen’s story, I pictured him as he rushed about, trying to locate co-workers, and urging them to vacate their workplace, which adjoined the Towers. Many didn’t realize the danger. Since their building did not seem in immediate peril, several wanted to continue working. Then the second plane hit.

At school, the whispering continued. Two planes had hit; then came word of a third, no -- a fourth. We continued teaching for the sake of the children. We read books and sang songs, added and divided, spelled and played games. We took the kids to recess and watched them run in the sunshine.  

Outside the Towers, everyone was running. Sirens wailed. The clear skies filled with smoke. Police officers shouted “Run!”. Firefighters rushed in. Streams of people flowed away from the danger. Stephen ran. 

Slowly, streams of cars flowed into our school parking lot. Parents were arriving.  On any other day, school was a safe enough place. Today, parents wanted their children home. Teachers called their own children too. We stood in line to use the school phone, wanting to hear the reassuring tones of our loved ones’ voices.  

Those running from the towers turned toward home also. Stephen told me that even in the turmoil, everyone headed in the direction of wherever they lived.  Stephen ran uptown toward his home. Those living in New Jersey rushed to the ferries, which were scooping up travelers and casting off from the docks at record speed. People called home too. The cell phone towers burned as thousands attempted to assure loved ones that they were OK; that they would be coming home.

Fifteen years have passed. Memorials to the victims at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania remind us of those who did not come home that day. All were frightened. Many were heroes. None are forgotten.  

We have all changed since that day. We have lost the sense of security that allowed us to look up into the clear blue sky and fear nothing but clouds. We hear news of wars in faraway lands and tremble. Terror is no longer a foreign concept.  

But there is one way we have not changed. No matter who we are, no matter where we are or what is happening, we all long for home. All over the world, parents love their children, spouses cling to one another, family groups of all types fill their homes with a love that beckons.     

The world is a dangerous place filled with many people with different beliefs and different goals. But if we can agree that we all love our families and all long for home, perhaps we can work together to make our collective home, the planet we all inhabit, a safer place for us all. 

Look up and see the stars, not the clouds, and aim for a better world.