Twin Towers

I was walking down the corridor of the Saint Vincent de Paul Seminary in Tandang Sora, Novaliches when I heard a commotion inside the television room. Then I overhead someone exclaim, “They have bombed the World Trade Center!” I opened the door and took a peek. All eyes were glued to the television set. An image that looked like the twin towers of the WTC appeared on the screen. There was smoke. I could not believe my my eyes. I looked again. This time the two towers crumbled to the ground. It was a surreal sight forever etched in my memory.

The event, nearly 12 years ago, recently came back to me when I had a chance to visit the site where the twin towers were last June 23 with my younger brother, Carlos, and his family. The tragedy, which took nearly 3000 lives, is remembered by two pools named, Reflecting Absence, a memorial designed by Israeli architect Michael Arad who was chosen from among 5,201 entries from 63 nations.

The memorial is “based on two voids placed where the towers once stood, each a city-block in length; water would pour from the edges into shimmering pools 30 feet below. Descending underground on ramps, visitors would hear the sound of rushing water, like a thousand people whispering in unison. At the bottom, the space would open up into a gallery with high, cantilevered ceilings. The names of the 2,749 dead would be etched on the perimeter of the pools, all lit by sunlight coming through the sheets of falling water.”

The two pools are the largest man-made waterfalls in the United States cascading down their sides. Each pool is 1-acre (4,000  m2), and symbolize the “loss of life and the physical void left by the terrorist attacks. The sound of the water falling is supposed to drown out the sounds of the city, making the site a contemplative sanctuary.”

76 bronze plates etched with the names of the victims are found in the memorial. I asked my brother what he felt about being there. He said, “It reminds you of the evil that is in men’s heart but more so of the eternal hope that springs from it.” Well said.

Easily the most amazing part of the memorial is a 30 foot-tall Callery pear tree, nicknamed the “Survivor Tree.” This was the last living thing to be pulled out of the rubble a month after the deadly attacks. When recovered she looked more dead than alive: a badly burned, eight foot long trunk with only one branch remaining and half of its root system snapped. Miraculously it was nursed back to health and replanted in the plaza of the 9-11 Memorial in 2010. It again survived Hurricane Irene in August 2011!

What a symbol of the human spirit – revealing the image and likeness of God in us – and its capacity to rebound from disaster and to turn despair into hope!

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I noted some names of victims etched in the memorial. Several sounded Filipino or Hispanic: Anthony Rodriguez, Edelmiro Abad, Gloria Nieves, and Emy de la Pena. There were indeed Filipino-Americans who were among the victims, as a Greek owner of a pizza place told us as he took a short breather from his hectic work.

Back in Jersey City with our hostess, Tita Susan, my late Father’s cousin from Gapan, Nueva Ecija, we learned of two of her own relatives who had close brushes with death that day. One had just been hired by one of the companies at the WTC. Instead of going to work at the building that day, he opted to do work at the hotel where he had lodged as he underwent the final interview. Another had also been hired and was preparing to leave for work when bird droppings messed up his vehicle. He came in late for work only to discover that those birds had actually saved his life.

How fragile is life and how contingent we are on factors beyond our control!

Recently, we had a spate of accidents involving our staff and volunteers in Cebu. The first one involved a fourth-year college student who makes time every Saturday for some street children. Last summer she and two others were our mainstays in the thrice-weekly tutorials for 25 street kids in our office. One rainy evening as she was crossing the street to board our multicab, she slipped on the road just as the traffic was starting to move. The street kids on the vehicle shouted at the top of their lungs at the lead car. It stopped just in the nick of time.

In another instance, a staff member took a hard fall – face down - into pebble-laden ground just as she was proceeding to board the same multicab parked outside our office. The fall was so hard it tore a hole into her denim jeans and bruised her skin.

A last instance involved a volunteer who does computer graphics for us. He was standing at the “safe” side of the road when a taxi decided to pick up speed by overtaking on the right side. It side swept him causing him to roll on the ground.

I thank God that in all three accidents, all the victims were spared from harm or serious injury! Looking back now, tragedies could have occurred but did not. God’s hand stayed these.

These close calls further strengthen our resolve to put God at the center of our work. Now my team prays the liturgy of the hours and other daily communal prayers with even greater resolve and joy knowing that our God is a God who saves.