Blue Sky And Beautiful Flowers: Her Day Before 9/11
Twenty years later, it's still the blue that haunts.
That cloudless day, the air just turning to autumn—the terrifying patch of bright blue sky that gradually appeared when the smoke parted just enough, revealing a space where the buildings had been.
Weeks later, I helped decorate the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for the memorial service of employees lost at the Windows on the World restaurant.
Blue hydrangeas, blue delphinium, green mountain laurel.
For me, 9/11 is inseparable from flowers. I was working in the high-end New York floral business to pay my rent while working on a novel, and this was a job that got you through the service entrance to the city's wealth—and all the way up an elevator to the 107th floor of Windows on the World in the North Tower.
I am among the lucky. I was off on that September morning; I did not lose someone close to me in the attack. Still, it took me two years and folding a thousand origami cranes before I could write an essay about that day; it's taken another 18 years for this piece to surface in print.
In that time, I've learned how grief accrues, a cruel accounting that comes with the blessing of each lap around the sun.
But I'm grateful for every day I've had since then, each one
