We all have them. I have mine about that Tuesday morning 25 years ago. Up early, only an hour at the computer because I needed to leave by 6:00am to commute to my work at Warm Springs where I worked Tuesday-Thursday. It was a two hour plus drive. Jerry was heading out with me in his truck to get parts in Madras, a couple of hours away too. The phone rang about 5:55am. Who would call before six in the morning. It could only be bad news.

And it was. My brother, calling from Minnesota two hours ahead of our West Coast clock said without prelude, “Remember when President Kennedy was assassinated and you came home from school crying?” I was sixteen, he was eight. “And I didn’t get why you were so upset?”

“Yes…”

“Well now I get why you were crying. Turn on the TV.”

We did and while we were on the phone, expressed a shared horror, shock, about what was happening before our eyes. Together, miles apart, we watched the second plane hit the North Tower at 9:03 Eastern – 6:03am West coast. We watched mesmerized. It was surreal, didn’t seem possible that it could be happening. Two planes? Hitting the invincible towers, the black billowing smoke filling the screen. Jerry and I finally decided to head out, me following him as the sun rose above our ridge. We traveled a few miles down highway 97 with our radios turned to NPR when about a half hour later we learned that the pentagon had been hit. Jerry pulled over and I slowed in behind him. We got out of our vehicles and I ran up to him; we held each other. I remember asking him what was happening? It was all so confusing, so horrible. But we knew then these were no accidents. These were planned attacks. But the need to touch base with family didn’t cease.  Calls to parents, children, nephews, one who was in the air when all this was happening, and struggling to find a rental car when all the planes were grounded after the Flight 93’s brave people brought that flight down at 7:03am, West Coast time. That occurred just three minutes after the South Tower collapsed. We would see those photographs later as the day as life and work went on, each person carrying solemn shock. I wouldn’t be back to the ranch until Thursday but I talked each day to Jerry, family. All safe but the national grief felt overwhelming. As I drove home on Thursday night, gratitude flushed through me knowing I’d soon have someone to share this heartache with, aching for all the loved-ones of all those who were missing.

That Saturday after 9-11, I was to have my first book signing at Powell’s Books downtown store, a truly big event for me. But I really wondered if I should cancel it, I mean who would come out for a book signing of a little know author for What Once We Loved, the third book in a series? But Powell’s said to keep the time. Jerry and I came early and in a park not far from the store people gathered and we formed a circle holding hands with strangers, many whom were stuck with no flights leaving Portland, all seeking that connection in a time of sorrow.  Clergy of various faiths offered prayers and comfort to the many stages of broken-heartedness reflected in that circle, in our world.

The time arrived and people started coming to the signing. They had to get more chairs out! It was stunning. More than 100 people showed up. Powell’s events person said they’d never had to get more chairs out. (It was possible people came just looking for a place to sit surrounded by stacks of books and had no idea who I was!).  But the crowd was attentive and I spoke about loss and community, which seems to permeate my novels in one way or another, and then I signed books. One woman waited to be last. She told me her 9-11 story.

A Pakistani couple lived down the street from her. She’d nod in passing but they’d never had a conversation. But she’d noticed that since Tuesday and the attacks, their shades had been drawn and the car never moved from the driveway. She said she tried to imagine how frightened they must be in this country with no clarity about who had brought about these tragedies except that the terrorists were likely from the Middle East. She wanted to do something. “I didn’t know Farsi,” she said. “I didn’t know them at all. So I asked myself  “what would Jane’s characters do in a time like this?’” That surprised me, that my characters might offer healing advice.

She decided that what she did know was how to bake bread. And so she did that, taking her gift to previously unknown neighbors to break bread with them. They opened the door to her when she knocked and invited her in with gentle nods and hesitant smiles. The trio muddled through the language barriers but what spoke was the tea, the bread. Jesus said to “feed my sheep,” a metaphor for reminding us to do what we can do to ease the suffering of others. For me, her act of kindness is the 9-11 story I prefer to dwell on.

I know you have 9-11 stories. Sharing them is healing. Find someone to tell. Tell me. We’ll remember together.