A birthday remembrance

Every generation tells stories about important milestones in their lives. When I was a child, the iconic stories I heard repeatedly were about the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, World War II, and FDR's death. They were things that either happened before I was born or that I was too young to remember. Where were you when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor? What were you doing when you heard that Franklin Roosevelt had died?

My generation did the same thing, but the questions were different. Where were you when JFK was shot? Where did you watch the moon landing live on TV? How did you first hear about the 9/11 attacks?

There will be time later to talk about Nov. 22, 1963, and July 20, 1969. But it seems appropriate this week to answer question No. 3: How did I first hear about the 9/11 attacks?

I wrote a piece for Style Weekly that answers the question, and it was published a week after 9/11. Here it is:

9/11.

It used to be a date with only happy associations for me. September 11 is my birthday.

But the happy associations were stripped from the date forever a week ago today.

I had taken the day off to celebrate, to stay at home and read a good book. Maybe even two books. I never got the chance.

Instead, I learned how important an on-line community can be.

I began my birthday by sleeping late. But by 8:30 I was up and watching "Today." At about 8:45, I decided to check my e-mail. There were about 30 messages that had come in overnight.

No, I don't have a lot of friends and business associates who are on-line obsessives. But I belong to an e-mail discussion group devoted to words and writing. There are more than 1,000 members of the group worldwide, representing most of the planet's English-speaking countries and some that are not. It's a civilized group. What else would you expect from a bunch of word people?

A lot of the overnight e-mails were birthday greetings. The group has a birthday monitor who sends out reminders, and good wishes from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and other places on the opposite side of the globe had come in while I was asleep. By this time it was about 9:15, and I was vaguely aware of hearing Katie Couric and Matt Lauer on the TV in the other room. I wondered idly what they were talking about, but I wasn't paying attention.

Then came a terse e-mail from a group member at the University of Delaware: does anybody know what's going on? A moment later, there was another e-mail from the East Coast: I just turned on CNN and started to cry immediately.

What? Cry? Wait. I walked into the living room to see what Matt and Katie were reporting.

Five minutes later, I was typing my own message to the group: Oh dear God. Those poor people.

I spent the next few hours in two chairs no more than 20 feet apart, one in front of the TV and one in front of the PC. The TV showed me what was going on. The PC provided a network of friends to remind me that I wasn't really alone.

From a group member in Canada: I am sitting here in Montreal, with CNN on. This is just about the most frightening thing I have seen... I am completely stunned. From a member on Martha's Vineyard: Happy birthday. Won't forget this one soon, I guess. I'm stunned. From a member farther west: We'll never feel safe again. My God. From a member in Northern Virginia: From my window, I can see black smoke billowing from the direction of the Pentagon. And from a member in Edinburgh, Scotland: Sympathy to all, especially New York... Hope everyone's OK.

Anguished messages and expressions of solidarity poured in from the U.S. and around the world. Like countless others, I didn't know whether to cry or be angry. Then I sent a message of my own: I'm sitting at home alone watching TV as this horror unfolds. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the sense of community that [this group] is providing... Thanks to you all, I don't feel quite so alone right now. From the other side of the world came a response: Same here in Taipei, with only TV news and tied up telephone networks.

It continued all morning and well into the afternoon. We virtually held each other's hands and hugged each other electronically. The word people provided a new kind of solace in the digital age.

Then came the message from abroad that pushed me over the edge: A longtime lurker, stunned with what I saw in TV, I want to pass to all of you in US the words of admiration expressed in our media by people who are close to the scene; admiration for the permeating sense of commonness among the people who are there. I feel the same when I read the posts from US-ian [friends]. My thoughts are with you. Grzegorz, in cold and shocked Krakow, Poland.

Grzegorz, whose name I couldn't even pronounce, who had been reading our messages to improve his English, whose own country had been through so much more in recent years than we lucky "US-ians" had endured, was offering up his admiration for us in our time of unspeakable horror.

That, finally, made me cry.

I've seen a lot of things come and go in my 59 years on the planet, but I've never before been comforted at a time like this by people whose faces I've never seen and probably never will see.

Welcome to the digital age, Don.

And to a new definition of family.
-30-

9/10/09 PS: A couple of years ago, in early September, I was at Jean-Jacques Bakery in Carytown picking up some rolls. There were two people in line in front of me, an older woman about my age and a young woman in her 20s. An elderly woman was in line behind me. I heard the first woman tell the clerk she needed a birthday cake for her husband. "He was born on Sept. 11, so I try to do something special for him now." The younger woman chimed in. "My father was born on Sept. 11, and he really hates it that 9/11 now means something so tragic." I couldn't resist joining the conversation. "I feel the same way about sharing my birthday with the attacks."

Then the elderly woman behind me piped up. "My birthday is Dec. 7. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on my birthday, it really made me angry. But I have some advice for you. As the years go by, you get over it. You realize it's still your day. No matter what, it's your birthday."

She was right.