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by Raquel Alonso

Every night before going to bed I used to stare at Manhattan at its best. The tall buildings with the lights on give you the impression of diamonds laid on black velvet. It is such a treat to live on the 26th floor, to not have the suffocating sight of walls and windows obstructing the view.

But the scenery has changed drastically since September 11th. White smoke was everywhere. At night the smoke became even more apparent with the shine of the stadium lights at Ground Zero that aided the workers making it through the night. From my window you would not pay attention to the buildings that survived the attack, your eyes could not leave that spot where the fumes and light were glowing. In the same way you see a hurricane from a distance, its dimension, its movement, its strength; in the same way you could see that spot on the tip of Manhattan where light hit the tiny molecules of dust giving an eerie impression of death and spirits.

The word "debris" was in the news, in my neighbor's mouths, in the press; but I couldn't think of debris per se, people were scorched to death. The Twin Towers became a crematory of innocents. The souls of the deceased were roaming about before going to the other world, the after-life. No matter the distance, you could see that uncanny cloud even from New Jersey.

I stood at my window for hours, hoping to see the black smoke turn to white; a good signal that fire was being extinguished. For a moment, I saw it happening and felt relieved. But the sudden and unexpected surrender of the towers after those agonizing hours filled me with disbelief for I knew I was "witnessing thousands of deaths," as John Updike describes the tragic scene.

The following days as the white cloud blanketed the city, some were afraid of breathing while others didn't care about covering their mouths and noses. As I breathed, I felt I inhaled the wandering spirits; I became a walking tombstone. I honored them with silence and with the wish that they could all rest in peace.

Friends who have gone to Auschwitz describe the sadness one breathes in the place. The number of victims in New York City is incomparable with that of the Holocaust, but the nature of the loss is the same. I didn't know a single person from the World Trade Center, but it didn't keep me from feeling the sadness. Walking through the streets and seeing the xeroxes of the missing people gave a face to those who died in such a tragic way.

Where I come from, Mexico, death is in a perpetual dance with life. One departs from this world but only from the physical side of it, it is not a final farewell-our physical existence embraces the intangible presence of our beloved. Since that Tuesday, I have become even more aware of an ethereal existence of the other.

War, terrorism, biological weapons, Afghanistan, security procedures, Taliban, the Twin Towers are words that now saturate the atmosphere of these times. It seems as if, for many, the human loss was buried in silence. Perhaps this evasiveness of bereavement is thought to be a way to digest the trauma of the disaster. Kearl's Guide to the Sociology of Death talks about how Americans are afraid "to include the dying in their dialogues." Avoiding confrontation with the dreadful sorrow does not resolve the grief. Nevertheless, America insisted on going on with its life. Writing on grief, Kathleen Gilbert, a Professor at Indiana University, points out that "acting normally" does not bring healing, it will only trigger recurrent sadness.

Grieving, then, becomes a difficult cognitive process where one learns to recognize a world that has been changed forever by the loss; it involves reconstruction of the normal: a reconciliation between the reality that existed before the loss with the reality that exists after. For instance, when a father expressed to Professor Gilbert: "My daughter's not in my life anymore. She's in my heart," the reconstruction of the normal that comes with the death of a loved one results; the relationship with his daughter is not ending, but is only being transformed.

Paul Myoda and Julian LaVerdiere commemorated the World Trade Center tragedy in a haunting, yet beautiful, photo collage calledPhantom Towers.The New York Times Magazine describes the artwork as showing "two powerful beams rising from a reflecting pool, refilling the void left by the twin towers with incandescence." The strength of the image translates into LaVerdiere's words: "Those towers are like ghost limbs, we can feel them even though they're not there anymore".

America needs to allow itself the difficult task of mourning. Maybe the thought that time heals all wounds gives comfort to the nation, but time in itself does not heal, as Professor Gilbert explains, it is what one does with time. I wonder how long this country can live in the fallacy of predictable and understandable normalcy while seeing a world that is neither.

Works Cited

"Filling the Void." The New York Times Magazine 23 Sept. 2001: 80.

Gilbert, Kathleen R. "What is Grief?" 2 Jan. 1997. 9 Dec. 2001. <http://www.indiana.edu/~hperf558/sprng97/unit1.html>.

"Kearl's Guide to the Sociology of Death." Kearl's Guide to Sociological Thanatology. 9 Dec. 2001. <http://www.trnity.edu/~mkearl/death.html>.

Longaker, Christine. "The Normal Process of Mourning."Spiritual Care Program. 9 Dec. 2001. <http://www.spcare.org/practices/suddendeath/bereavement- processofmourning.html>.

Updike, John. Reflection. New Yorker. 24 Sept. 2001. 11 Nov. 2001.

<http://www.newyorker.com/THE_TALK_OF_THE_TOWN/?01092ta_talk_wtc>.

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