This morning after I wrote to you, I checked my email and found that Yahoo.com is asking people to write their September 11th stories, as a "Yahoo Contributor," so here is my entry....I had to condense a lot, to get the word count right, and I have probably told you the longer version anyway, but with this, I added a twist to it at the end...and I thanked my Survivor friends at the Museum for helping me get through a very tough time. I don't know if it will get published anywhere, or not, but it was helpful for me to write it.
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A naiive kid from a small town in Michigan, I thought I could change the world, or SAVE the world, by moving to Washington DC to work at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Now, I'm realizing that I can only save MYSELF. I've studied WWII and the Holocaust all my life, since the age of 10, when I first read The Diary of Anne Frank. She changed my life. I became personal friends with the woman who hid the Frank family, Miep Gies, for over 15 years. I even wrote an article about her life story, in January 1999's World War II magazine. I loved her like she was my very own grandmother, because she truly was an angel on earth. She inspired me to do good things, to teach kids about the power of good deeds, the power of changing hatred, of educating themselves to learn the truth before jumping to incorrect conclusions based on prejudice or racism.
I was in the Museum on 9/11, and had to evacuate everyone from it, while walking around in a daze of shock myself. That day, though I lived through it, a huge part of me died. I lost my job at the Museum because I had a family emergency--my mother was flying to Florida that day and we couldn't find her---so I panicked and drove to Michigan to be with my sister, until my mother was found and returned home. I was told I was an essential employee and had to be at work the next day, but I couldn't do that. They made me choose between my family and my job. I chose to stay with my family. It seemed like the right thing to do, but it turned into a 3.5 year mistake that changed me into someone I never knew I could become.
To put it simply: I hated people. Suddenly, I really just hated the whole world and everybody in it. These horrible people didn't seem to WANT to be saved, they didn't WANT to learn about the dangers of hate or prejudice or racism, they didn't WANT to make the world a better place----they just wanted to blow everything up and kill everybody that wasn't like THEM. I hated George W. Bush because (I still believe) he KNEW 9/11 was going to happen, but didn't bother to warn any of us. I hated the fact that I no longer had the best job of my entire life, and I miss it every day---still have dreams about being there, walking those halls, I know that place like the back of my hand. In fact, Spielberg once shook my hand, and I got into trouble for it. I hated Spielberg then too. I hated the whole entire universe, and became very angry, which was something I never experienced before in my whole life. I even hated GOD.
Now, as I look back on the past decade of my life, I see the huge abyss of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that caused me to have such hatred, anger, and seething rage, destroying my soul. I was suicidal for a long time. It took everything I could do to climb out of that abyss. It still lingers inside, from time to time, even now, and I know it could easily swallow me up if I let it. My life was chaos in DC after 9/11, I was all alone, single, trying to make sense of a senseless thing. After 3.5 years of hardship and financial devastation in Michigan, I returned to DC, to get my life back. But the Museum wouldn't rehire me. I tried for several years to get my job back, to no avail. I had to come to terms with the fact that my life's purpose, for some reason, was taken away from me. Why God would do that, I have no idea. Wasn't I doing something GOOD for this world? There seemed to be a higher purpose, working there, and I loved it--even the bittersweet difficulty of working in the midst of man's inhumanity towards man, surrounded by death, doom and destruction all day, every day. It wasn't an easy job. But it was my life.
Unfortunately, my life suddenly ended on 9/11. I lived a zombie-like, numb existence for nearly 10 years afterwards. Even the web site I created to teach kids about Holocaust history, was of little comfort.
But eventually, I realized that 9/11 was just ONE DAY---whereas the Holocaust Survivors I worked with every day for six years, endured TWELVE YEARS WORTH of 9/11's. We had only ONE DAY of horror, much like Pearl Harbor. They had those days from kindergarten through 12th grade. Imagine that. They saved ME from my own self-destruction, those Survivors. They were my "peeps," my family. Many of them have since passed away, but after 9/11, I felt this huge guilt of leaving them behind--running away, just abandoning them, turning my back on them---like the good German people and their neighbors all did, when the Nazis took over. The pain of this guilt lived inside me for a very long time. This realization led me to self-loathing worse than anything I have ever known.
I believed they all hated me for leaving them like that, without so much as saying goodbye. But, when I confided this to one of them, I was reassured the NONE of them felt that way. They all loved me. I was told that I did what I had to do, and they would have done the same thing. That blessing from Nesse Godin, who called me her "daughter," changed me back into a living, breathing, FEELING human being again, one with restored compassion and love, and a renewed passion for trying to do good in the world. Without that Museum, and even the heartbreaking loss of it, and without those Survivors, I would not be here today.
They, and all they endured, actually saved me.
I am now married to a wonderful, loving husband, and we live in Pittsburgh, with both of our mothers. We just moved into a brand new house, and life is much better now that I have loved ones around me. I'm beginning a class to learn Interior Design, because I now know, I can't save the whole world. I can only save my little corner of it, and myself. I cannot rebuild the Twin Towers, but I can make my own little part of the world a prettier, nicer place. I still keep in touch with my Survivor friends and coworkers at the Museum, and I still miss it every day, but now I no longer hate people, and for the first time in a decade, I am truly happy.
I was in the Museum on 9/11, and had to evacuate everyone from it, while walking around in a daze of shock myself. That day, though I lived through it, a huge part of me died. I lost my job at the Museum because I had a family emergency--my mother was flying to Florida that day and we couldn't find her---so I panicked and drove to Michigan to be with my sister, until my mother was found and returned home. I was told I was an essential employee and had to be at work the next day, but I couldn't do that. They made me choose between my family and my job. I chose to stay with my family. It seemed like the right thing to do, but it turned into a 3.5 year mistake that changed me into someone I never knew I could become.
To put it simply: I hated people. Suddenly, I really just hated the whole world and everybody in it. These horrible people didn't seem to WANT to be saved, they didn't WANT to learn about the dangers of hate or prejudice or racism, they didn't WANT to make the world a better place----they just wanted to blow everything up and kill everybody that wasn't like THEM. I hated George W. Bush because (I still believe) he KNEW 9/11 was going to happen, but didn't bother to warn any of us. I hated the fact that I no longer had the best job of my entire life, and I miss it every day---still have dreams about being there, walking those halls, I know that place like the back of my hand. In fact, Spielberg once shook my hand, and I got into trouble for it. I hated Spielberg then too. I hated the whole entire universe, and became very angry, which was something I never experienced before in my whole life. I even hated GOD.
Now, as I look back on the past decade of my life, I see the huge abyss of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that caused me to have such hatred, anger, and seething rage, destroying my soul. I was suicidal for a long time. It took everything I could do to climb out of that abyss. It still lingers inside, from time to time, even now, and I know it could easily swallow me up if I let it. My life was chaos in DC after 9/11, I was all alone, single, trying to make sense of a senseless thing. After 3.5 years of hardship and financial devastation in Michigan, I returned to DC, to get my life back. But the Museum wouldn't rehire me. I tried for several years to get my job back, to no avail. I had to come to terms with the fact that my life's purpose, for some reason, was taken away from me. Why God would do that, I have no idea. Wasn't I doing something GOOD for this world? There seemed to be a higher purpose, working there, and I loved it--even the bittersweet difficulty of working in the midst of man's inhumanity towards man, surrounded by death, doom and destruction all day, every day. It wasn't an easy job. But it was my life.
Unfortunately, my life suddenly ended on 9/11. I lived a zombie-like, numb existence for nearly 10 years afterwards. Even the web site I created to teach kids about Holocaust history, was of little comfort.
But eventually, I realized that 9/11 was just ONE DAY---whereas the Holocaust Survivors I worked with every day for six years, endured TWELVE YEARS WORTH of 9/11's. We had only ONE DAY of horror, much like Pearl Harbor. They had those days from kindergarten through 12th grade. Imagine that. They saved ME from my own self-destruction, those Survivors. They were my "peeps," my family. Many of them have since passed away, but after 9/11, I felt this huge guilt of leaving them behind--running away, just abandoning them, turning my back on them---like the good German people and their neighbors all did, when the Nazis took over. The pain of this guilt lived inside me for a very long time. This realization led me to self-loathing worse than anything I have ever known.
I believed they all hated me for leaving them like that, without so much as saying goodbye. But, when I confided this to one of them, I was reassured the NONE of them felt that way. They all loved me. I was told that I did what I had to do, and they would have done the same thing. That blessing from Nesse Godin, who called me her "daughter," changed me back into a living, breathing, FEELING human being again, one with restored compassion and love, and a renewed passion for trying to do good in the world. Without that Museum, and even the heartbreaking loss of it, and without those Survivors, I would not be here today.
They, and all they endured, actually saved me.
I am now married to a wonderful, loving husband, and we live in Pittsburgh, with both of our mothers. We just moved into a brand new house, and life is much better now that I have loved ones around me. I'm beginning a class to learn Interior Design, because I now know, I can't save the whole world. I can only save my little corner of it, and myself. I cannot rebuild the Twin Towers, but I can make my own little part of the world a prettier, nicer place. I still keep in touch with my Survivor friends and coworkers at the Museum, and I still miss it every day, but now I no longer hate people, and for the first time in a decade, I am truly happy.
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I should have added, "I felt that I had wasted those 6 years at the Museum, talking to a brick wall of people who just didn't CARE about world peace, love, or helping others." But I ran out of room. I guess it alludes to that though. Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you, just for the heck of it. I had a good cry after I wrote it.
Love, Rebecca
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