Day 4:
Interrupting the political today for personal (at least now at 5:45am).
Abcug's Humans Of New York
When I graduated from college in 1993, it was a tough time for the job seeker. I remember walking through Manhattan, visiting employment agencies wearing these very cool black platform Mary Jane pumps that were so 1993. I refused to wear a suit because I wanted to land a job with the "creatives". Having eaten books alive since I can remember, I had dreams of working for one of the great publishing companies. With copies of my ecru resume in my portfolio pad, this Brandeis BA in English and American Literature was ready.
One day I saw Jesus. He was walking naked up 5th Avenue by the NYPL with a cross tied to his back and a garland of flowers around his head. This was when "those" people were still part of my New York. You never knew what you'd see out there and that day, well, I saw and heard the gospel.
Not long after my come to Jesus moment - Hallelujah! (RIP Leonard Cohen), Miracle of Sweet Miracles! - I was offered a job. No one had a job. Starting salaries were $18,500 a year. But, 200 Madison Avenue, here I was. Black tights, black platform Mary Janes, commuting from home, stopping for a coffee and a coffee cake muffin every morning - I had arrived.
My "Putnam People" were my joy. I refer to them as such because they were special and part of my "before" life (getting to that). We had such fun. I don't know what other people did during lunch at their jobs, but we threw French Fete's with Edith Piaf playing in the background and had Burger King kid's parties replete with cardboard crowns and group trips to Molly Wee for colleagues' birthdays. We worked hard, but we also had life.
Part of my job involved traveling to book conventions. Those days would often conclude with long, luxurious dinners comprised of authors, librarians and other book folk. Our conversations - oh the conversations - were vibrant and smart and raucous and adult. I was 22 and I had found my place in job heaven.
And then came Anaheim. Thursday night November 11, 1993, I sat eating and drinking and talking the night away. I have forgotten the name of this particular convention but I do remember the chocolate soufflé. While I labored over whether or not to have this "must order" chocolate soufflé, back in Waltham, my brother seemed to also have been hungry.
I ate that soufflé at around 11 pm. He apparently left the campus of Brandeis sometime around then, the passenger in a borrowed car driven by a pledge brother. I'll never quite know what food decisions he labored over early that morning in Waltham while I was on the west coast savoring every last bite of my soufflé on that (still for me) evening, but I hope he chose well.
On November 12, 1993, at 7 am PST, the hotel room phone jolted me awake (we were still mostly cell phone-less back then). As I reached for the phone, there was a pounding at my door. It seemed like my boss was trying to get in. I had to figure out how to hold the phone (with cord) and somehow reach the door. I have no idea how I did it, but I did. And, as I said hello to the person on the other end of the line, and to H who came charging at me (and, I think, caught me as I crumbled to the floor), I learned that I was being called home. My brother had been in an accident.
The details get foggy here - but here's what I remember and will never forget for the rest of my life:
I sat on the floor trying to figure out what to do with the suitcase in front of me. H was there, and then so was G. My colleagues, present in a way no one should ever have to be present at work, were now saddled with the task of keeping me in one piece long enough to get me home.
I am the neatest packer. Not that time. I remember shoving everything into my suitcase in a ball and to this day - even through the stupor - I can still feel how uncomfortable that mess was for me.
"Everything is going to be wrinkled... everything is going to be wrinkled."
Everything was forever wrinkled.
I write this at 6 am on Saturday, November 12, 2016. 23 years have passed. Each year I awaken on this day in a jumble of feels and thoughts. I encountered many good humans on this day back then - flight attendants who fell over themselves trying to take care of me, the anonymous woman several rows behind me who saw me alone, crying and shaking, offering herself to me if I needed someone to lean on. I never got to thank her.
But there are two people in some still-hard-to-access-emotional space who I hold as the most special. Two people who I can barely write about without melting into a puddle because that day they took care of me in a way no co-workers in my pre 9-11 world ever should have.
One of them is here on FB and will hopefully read this and understand the depths of my gratitude. That day, he was the big brother I never had. For those who know him, this wasn't a side of him I'd ever had the chance to experience. The rawness of those moments connected me to him in a way in which I still have no words. He carried me from that hotel, to the airport, my ambassador to this "after" life I knew nothing about and he made me feel protected until the very last second those plane doors closed. He didn't want to let me go alone. I saw the look of helplessness and despair in his eyes. I told him I'd be ok, that H needed him. He looked skeptical but complied.
In my "after" life nothing is as vivid as my senses during those last few moments spent with G. As I transitioned from my "before" life, this man of minimal verbiage (but an animal with prose), saved me from shattering to pieces.
I love him for it and, one day, I hope I'll have the courage to see him again.
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