It was two whole weeks later that I found myself sitting on the train, heading to the same train station I had gone to that fateful day. Inside the pit of my stomach, it felt like a tiny demon was doing backflips over and over again until I felt sick. My sweaty hands left tiny wet marks on my jeans where I’d been drying them every few minutes. I fiddled with my hair and tried to imagine I was somewhere I felt safer. Writing, trauma counselling and self-reflection can only prepare you so well to return to the scene of the worst day of your life.
When I got off the train, I followed the same path I always had, but this time, I walked past the library. The doors and windows were still boarded up and police tape lined its perimeters. Sadistic tourists looked on in amazement, taking photos and muttering to themselves. I rolled my eyes at them as I walked past, then checked my phone to be sure I was heading to the right place. The new venue for the reunion day of our program was inside a small office building in the next block over from the library. I paused for a second in the doorway to the new space. The room was much brighter than the old one and didn’t fill me with the same sense of impending doom. My eyes immediately caught Harry’s who flashed a smile in my direction and beckoned for me to sit beside him. As I walked in, I noticed another snack table in the corner with all the same snacks on display.
We watched and joked together as each member walked into the room. Dwayne and Aaliyah were the last two to enter, their hands intertwined as they took the remaining two seats next to one another. I shot Harry a look of surprise.
Andrea looked battered, like she’d lost a war, but she seemed, never-the-less determined to get started. She stood to commence the session, her whole body appeared to shake under the weight of her thoughts, her eyes looked heavy, like she hadn’t slept since the attack. It shocked me at first, until I realised that there was every possibility that that was true. You tend to think of people in her position as being immune to trauma, but the reality is, she has been going through the same pain as each and every one of us over the last few weeks.
“I’m not going to pretend that nothing happened the last time we met”—Andrea’s voice shook with every word, her eyes darted around the room as if on high alert—“and I’m not going to act like I’m coping as well as I would like to be.”
I felt the turning in my stomach resume.
“What happened to every single one of us was a horrible turn of fate and the irony of a group of our nature getting caught in an attack like that is not lost on me,” said Andrea. “Trauma is something I’ve spent my whole life teaching other people to overcome, but I see now that a degree only takes you so far. It’s not as simple as I always believed it to be. We are lucky to be alive, and sometimes that is enough to put the soul at rest. Sometimes, in the worst of times, it’s enough to know that you get to wake up and see the sunrise tomorrow. Likewise, sometimes, it is this knowledge, that can be your undoing. Sometimes, the thought that you have to wake up and live in a world where planes just fly into buildings and gunmen kill twenty-four people in a public library breaks you more than witnessing it,” Andrea said shakily.
For the first time since we had met, Andrea spoke from the heart, and every single one of us listened intently.
“Given everything that we have all been through,” she said. “I fail to see how a few trust falls and deflection exercises are going to help any of us. So, instead, I want to hear from you. I want to hear what you’ve been doing, how you’ve been coping and what you feel has changed for you since the attack. One of you has been in contact with me, and I think I will let her start,” Andrea finished with a nod in my direction.
Beside me, I felt Harry’s bemusement as he turned his body to look at me. I chose to ignore whatever bewildered expression he had, and instead, pulled my notebook out of my bag and opened it to the bookmarked page.
“Hi all,” I started, looking around the room. “I know that I’m no expert on any of this, but there are a few things that I wanted to say, and I felt like there was no better time to say them. So, I got in touch with Andrea and, well, here we are.” I smiled at them all.
In the pit of my stomach, the backflips continued. The air around me got warmer, and as I closed my eyes and took a minute to breath, I felt the darkness threatening to overcome me. But as I opened my eyes again, my whole body absorbed the sunlight that shone brightly into the room through its large windows. I opened my mouth, and with the same force that had held me back so much in the past, I let every word pour out of me.
“I don’t want to pretend that my mental state is perfect because it’s not. There are days when I wake up and jump out of bed, ready to face the day, fully embracing all the opportunities that I’m so blessed with. But there are also days when I want to stay in bed, sinking deeper and deeper into the sheets, as my body, mind and soul crumbles into the dusty old mattress. Those days, I pretend that the world around me doesn’t exist and that I don’t exist within it. I don’t like to openly share those days with anyone, not even those inside this room whom I have come to love so much.” I nodded slightly to Harry, trying desperately to hold back the tears threatening to break through.
“But I know now that they are all a part of my story. It is the good days that give me the strength to push through the harder ones and the bad days that remind me to make the most of the good. Each and every one of you decided to push through a bad day, to share the most damaged piece of your heart with a group of total strangers. You stood up and said that you weren’t going to let the awful things that have happened stop you from living your life, and I admire you all so much for it. I admit that I felt like I didn’t belong here in the early days. I was so far away when it all happened. I wasn’t directly impacted like so many of you were, and I felt like you all knew it. But each of you welcomed me with open arms, and you didn’t give up on me – for that, I’m so incredibly thankful. Each of you has shown me that I’m not alone, and I think that’s all anyone ever wants to feel.”
I wiped the tears sliding down my cheek.
“When I think of what we did, just a mere eight weeks ago – how we came together, how we overcame so many obstacles to save each other’s lives – I am overwhelmed with pride. We proved to ourselves, and to each other, that this attack, and the one that came before, do not define who we are. They do not define our mental state and they do not define how we choose to face each day. We stand united, a force to be reckoned with, in the face of terror. We move into our future, telling the world that we are prepared for whatever it might throw at us. We may not be in control, we may need to accept that sometimes things will throw us off guard and that certain days will be harder than others, but we will always get through them. There is always a light shining bright at the end of the tunnel. For me, that light was ignited by each and every one of you inside this room. It stays alight through my fight for my mental health. And that fight doesn’t always mean standing up and running toward the swinging range of a gun-wielding maniac. Sometimes that fight is just lying in bed and telling myself that it will get better, and that tomorrow is another day, another opportunity to seize the moment and to take full advantage of the life I’ve been blessed with. My mental health issues are what put me in this room, but the strength, the courage, the compassion and the resilience in each of you are what kept me coming back and are what will allow me to go forth and live my life. September 11th, 2001 broke every single little piece of me, reshaping me into the mess who entered this room on day one of this program. But moving forward, I will not let it limit the life I lead.”
When I finally stopped speaking, I looked up from my piece of paper, and every single person in the room had a tear in their eye, every single person looked broken but strong, defiant and ready to take on whatever came next.
“Jesus, isn’t it a bit early in the session to start making us cry, Lilly,” India whispered softly.
We all laughed, and then, as if someone had injected a thought in all our heads simultaneously, we stopped and smiled at one another. There truly was nothing we couldn’t do.