by Gerald Chambers
On September 11, 2001, we awoke in Gunnison, Colorado to what locals call a Bluebird Day, awash in the clear light of Georgia O’Keefe’s Southwest, a cloudless azure sky overhead. We felt sad. It was almost time to leave this beautiful valley. Our family had already started to rehearse the stories we would tell about the good times enjoyed yet again with cousins, grown children, and friends during our annual hunting-fishing adventure in the rugged Gunnison mountains.
Our cabin was small, but we had a compound, and it didn’t feel crowded when others left their cabins and gathered in the kitchen-eating area for coffee before the chef of the day started breakfast. A beautiful white horse grazed in the adjacent pasture and occasionally tried to stick his nose through the kitchen window. I looked around for an apple.
Someone turned on the television in the kitchen. The sound was muted. A friend was changing channels, and the image of the first plane hitting the tower appeared on every channel, slamming us again and again. Someone murmured “Shhh!” and the noisy companionship of the room dissolved into total quiet. My son Chris remembers, “We all stood in silence around that little television, watching intensely as the planes hit the towers,” and it began to sink in that this was real, happening in real time. Jason, my first-born said, ”As we watched the live shot, the second plane flew into the other tower, and the gravity of it all hit us pretty hard.”
Since it was close to departure day, we all sprang into action to pack for home. Some had driven. Some had flown. My cousin Frank and I flew from our respective towns, and had rental cars we were supposed to turn in. We hesitated to return the cars since all planes had been grounded and all flights canceled. When we called the rental companies, the agents told us we could not drive the cars back home. After a moment of reflection, my cousin Frank, who rarely swears, looked at me and said, “The hell with ‘em. We’re driving home.”
This desire for Home bound us together in one purpose, as though clan chieftains back in the remote Appalachians where we all grew up were calling us to war. With grim-faced resolve, we completed our departure preparations.
For some reason, I was supposed to relinquish my rental car to Alamo at the Colorado Springs Airport and pick up another car for the drive to Albuquerque, where my wife Mary was visiting her sister Elizabeth. After driving a few miles northeast toward the Springs, I suddenly decided the hell with the car and Colorado Springs, swerved around and turned the wheels south toward New Mexico.
Mary and I had planned to fly home two days later, but early on the morning of September 12, after consulting a Delta agent at the Albuquerque Airport, I knew that we couldn’t be assured of a flight anytime soon. Desperate for the refuge of our own house, we quickly packed the hijacked rental car and hit the road.
As we were leaving, Elizabeth ran out to the car with a bag of carrots and a box of Cheezits, the only snacks she could lay hands on quickly, and we were off. The carrots and crackers sustained us during the first leg of the long drive that was to follow.
I jokingly said to Mary that I wasn’t stopping until we saw a Waffle House. We did find one in Oklahoma, at the edge of the Cherokee lands. It was 4:00 in the morning when we checked in to the adjacent motel, and we were up at 8:00 for a quick breakfast in the Waffle House booth before continuing the tense journey homeward.
We drove the rest of the way to Augusta, Georgia in one day. We arrived late and exhausted. Along the way, we felt heartened and tearful seeing the throngs of fellow Americans of every stripe who stood on every single overpass all across the country, miming hugs, saluting, and waving flags–signaling determination, solidarity and affection. We had solidity as Americans.
Back home and barely rested, thenext day we drove to our lovely little Victorian Gothic church in Augusta. We needed to revive, to refresh our sad and grieving spirits. The warmth of polished wood and brass and the beauty of stained glass began the work of restoration. The church contains memorial widows that honor soldiers from the Civil War to the Korean War, and I couldn’t help thinking, “there is no more space; how can we honor the heroes to come.” The sanctuary soon filled with grieving parishioners and community friends.
We shared the calm glow of the familiar sanctuary, comforted by the soft beauty of the chancel window that depicts Jesus watching over his lambs, along with a dove in flight that represents the Holy Spirit. Although we found some solace there, we could not erase from our minds the agonizing images of the tragedy, of people jumping and dying, running to escape the collapsing towers; of firemen and policemen rushing to rescue, braving the hellish atmosphere of suffocating smoke and raining debris; of Todd Beamer and the other heroes of Flight 93 who did not let it fly into its target: the U.S. Capitol. They brought the plane down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania and lost their lives.
I didn’t pray, didn’t ask for anything, just sat there, numb, thinking only of the dead, wondering how to process a tragedy for which there was no precedent in our lives, juggling an overwhelming mix of sorrow, disbelief and anger—and soon the grief was overwhelming. I had been stoic until then, but the sorrow overcame me, and the tears flowed.
The next day the parish gathered again for a service, and we were comforted by the presence of friends and neighbors united in grief and sadness. We hugged and wept and listened to the words of the minister as he attempted to comfort us. We were slowly coming to the realization that our world had changed forever.
But we were home.
