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09/11/2025

Today’s blog

Lynn Murphy Mark

Who can forget?

It’s been 24 years. It feels like yesterday. We hospice people were organizing our days when Steve, the chaplain, came in looking pale and sick. “An airplane just hit one of the towers in New York.”, he said quietly, almost reverently. We collectively looked up at him, perplexed about what in the world he had just said. He repeated that the World Trade Center had been hit by a full-sized jetliner. It was hard to put together what he was saying and then turn back to our usual routine of patient assignments and gathering the supplies we would need at each home. 

Then when the news of the second tower being hit was broadcast, every last one of us was in tears. The only safe and logical thing to do was to go about our days, care for our people, and pay attention to the media for more information. We watched in horror as both of the behemoth buildings crumbled.

It was a beautiful, sunny day when we each got in our vehicles to set forth to take care of business. My thoughts were locked on to my kids – Jackie outside of Los Angeles in college, and Ted in Chicago in college. I would have given anything to go get them and somehow keep them safe. The fact that they were each in cities on par with New York City terrified me. I didn’t know if we were at war or if there would be similar incidents in other big cities.

I went through my day, in my assigned area of DePaul Health Center, not all that far from the airport. As I peered out of windows while making my rounds I noticed that the blue skies were empty of any airplanes. News came about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, and the one that hit the Pentagon. The level of tension in that hospital building was palpable. No one could speak of anything else. I left to go see some patients in their homes, wondering how much this horror would impact each person, knowing that each person was dealing with their own, very personal, challenge. Again, the quiet, empty skies were somehow terrifying. 

George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school, talking to a group of little kids. I caught the news clip of someone whispering into his ear, and his subsequent look of complete confusion. That was probably the look we were all sporting. Everyone’s television was on and people were glued to the screens. My sickest, weakest patients all wanted to talk about what was happening. Their caregivers let me in to their homes quietly. There were no words to describe the inner turmoil sweeping across the United States, but we were all caught up in our own private terrors. 

When we gathered in the hospice office at the end of that endless day, all of us wanted to go straight home and hug whoever was around. In my case it was our Shit-tzu, Missie, who would be waiting for me to show up. I had managed to talk to Jackie and Ted and assure myself that they were safe and sound. But I still had frightening thoughts that their cities would be hit as well. 

I talked to one of my friends who lived with her mom. Her mom was well on her way to a diagnosis of full blown Alzheimers. My friend said she had to turn off the television because each time she saw the pictures of the buildings collapsing,  her mom acted as if she was seeing it for the first time. I said that was exactly how I was feeling but I couldn’t turn away from the television. 

I have been to the 9/11 memorial in the heart of Manhattan. I have run my fingers along the thousands of names carved into the stone edges. I have listened to the waters falling into the structure. I’ve considered the level of hatred and commitment that the perpetrators felt as they prepared to end their lives and leave a legacy of destruction behind. I’ve honored the courage and selflessness that occupied each helper on that day and the days beyond. I’ve cried for the families of the victims, knowing that their lives were woven together by this tragedy. 

And on this 9/11 anniversary I think of the mayhem and destruction that is going on in Gaza. Thousands of people are dead there as well, and thousands are being systematically starved and relocated to yet another rubble-strewn place. My heart breaks for them.