It was a gorgeous day here in Pittsburgh.  The temps and humidity were low and the sun shining.  It reminded me of September 11, 2001, for some strange reason.  It just felt, well, too perfect in a way.  It was a day much like that day began. 

Pittsburgh was touched by 9/11 in a very intimate way although nothing like what New Yorker's, Pentagon, and Shanksville residents endured.  We were ordered to evacuate the entire city that morning -- many of us not sure why.  As time passed, news traveled and heads craned toward the bright September sky for hints of airplanes and terroristic assaults.  I knew all about it. 

My office cube mates and I had spent the past 30 minutes watching reports on a PC monitor and listening to a radio.  We were in awe.  Weren't we all?  I shall never forget my great friend (God rest his soul) Mike walking towards me and saying "We are under ASSAULT!  America is UNDER ATTACK!"  He was right in more ways than he could have possibly imagined, die-hard Republican that he was.

Anyhow, I thought about 9/11 this morning briefly.  It flickered across my mind and rested there with a gnawing sadness and slight nausea before I bustled off to a meeting at noon.  I think about it a lot, actually; especially on beautiful fall mornings filled with blue skies and low humidity.  I wish I could take it all back and rewind the tape but I can't.  That was the day I started smoking again after eight months off of the coffin nails. The morning/day filled with indescribable horrors and slices of camera-like memory sit poised within easy recall. 

When I returned from my meeting with my boss, our unit assistant beckoned us over to her desk with waving hands and an animated face. 

"Just so you know," she paused and gestured right,"a guy jumped out of the building next door and is lying dead on the street below."

"They took someone away in handcuffs so maybe he was pushed," she continued, as my stomach lurched and heaved into a tight ball.  "Lots of people are over there looking," she finished, shrugging sheepishly. 

A million things raced through my mind as still photographs framed with agony, connection, and sadness.  Immediately, I thought suicide.  Then, murder.  Visions of my neighbor at West Virginia University decades ago that had shot his wife in the front yard and all of the onlookers that followed with snipers poised in my attic.  Thoughts that it could have been me lying on the street below a few years ago if I hadn't found Dr. Glanz.  Thoughts of 9/11 and all of those who jumped to their death from the burning buildings. 

It filled me with such sadness.  I felt the urge to cry but fought it off somehow.  This was a young Vietnamese man in his 20's and the person led away, his girlfriend.  It's not known if he completed suicide or fell or was pushed.  Two of the people that work for my company ran to his body and tried CPR to no avail.  They will be scarred forever just as I will be by 9/11 and those images of our WTC burning and the Pentagon and the crash site at Shanksville. 

I did not go look today.  I knew it would be emblazoned there, in my memory, until I die. 

I feel sorry for those who did witness it -- standing just outside our building at lunch and smoking cigarettes or walking past or peering down from the 12th floor.  He fell with arms and legs flailing, apparently trying to grasp onto something, and screaming.  Twelve stories is a long way to fall.  A man I've never met before today told me that he heard the thud when his body hit.  It scarred him.  And he turned to me and asked me how in the world people ever get so desperate as to commit suicide.  He assumed, as I did, that the young man took his own life.

There were three of us standing there talking when he said this.  I turned to him and looked him square in the eyes and said, "When you lose ALL HOPE and wake up day after day after day ... death becomes appealing."  He questioned me.  I told him I knew on a very personal level what it feels like to have no hope and that I was blessed to have overcome my depression.  I knocked on wood (a nearby frame on a white board) and went on my way, felt their eyes boring into my back as a I turned the corner.

But for the grace of God, my dog Zoe, and Dr. Glanz, go I, I thought to myself.  I felt sick in my stomach and strolled to the ladies' room.  I stood in the bathroom for a few minutes and ran cold water over my hands.  I rationalized (strangely) that maybe he was pushed or just fell.  It's an awful thing to end one's life.  It's so final.

He will never hear that child screaming as I walk toward my car in the parking lot.  He will never hear the incredible Soul Asylum song in my Jeep as I wind my way home.  He will not see the dog's tail wagging.  He will not ... know anything more. 

It was the song of a cardinal bird that caused me to regurgitate the dozens of pills I'd eaten on that February day.  I thought to myself, as sedated as I was and prepared for death, that I'd never, ever, hear that sound again over newly fallen snow.  Death was not for me.  I was not ready.  And so, began my journey back to life.  So, in a way, a cardinal saved me and, guilt for leaving Zoe alone, and then, much later, Dr. Glanz.

I searched for Pittsburgh deaths from falling and suicides from window leaping and could find very little.  However, I did stumble on a web site of the entire 9/11 chronology based on personal accounts, news stories, and the testimony during the 9/11 commission.

I have said, since the very beginning, that the flight over Shanksville was shot down by our military.  No one believed me.  Not even my geek friends.  I recall hearing one account that day from a fisherman floating on the nearby Indian Lake about how debris rained down on him seconds before the plane hit the ground.  It just didn't make sense that a plane would rain down debris before it crashed unless it was shot down.  Right?  Okay.  If you still doubt it, check this site out.  Verify and cross-verify the facts.  They are what they are.  Geeks 0.  Me 1. (EDITORIAL NOTE:  I verified this site after posting and it vanished ... vamoos ... wiped outo ... weird, eh?  Try this site instead.

Why didn't our government fess up?  Surely, a nation of mourning people would have understood WHY they had to shoot the plane down.  Yes?  A plane headed for our nation's capital with ill-intent certainly should be shot down.  I don't think anyone can argue that.  And yet, more lies. 

Some days ... I wish I could rewind the entire tape and just pretend it didn't happen. And sometimes, I am so damned grateful for wagging tails and cardinals singing.

Hey Stac,
I know what you mean about 9/11. I've had a rough chronology since that day- actually since 3/11/01:
3/11/01 Dad died
9/11/01 terrorist attack Firefighter husband volunteers to go (thankfully he doesn't get called)
9/5/03 Husband suffers a stroke , 27 days in icu, 7 months of recovery before going back to work as a firefighter.
3/12/04 Mom dies (12 days from diagnois til death) 3yrs and 1 day after Dad
11/04 I drag myself to therapy and go on medication
That was the lowest point i think-
My life improved greatly in 05- not w/o it's complications. I met and fell in love with my best friend and she made it her mission to make me happy. She did a great job. She was also married so as you can imagine things are still complicated and crazy but I am better now than I ever was. I guess it's true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
I'm thankful that the sweet song of a cardinal and the love of your pet gave you the courage to carry on. I enjoy reading your blog. take care Sorry this comment is so long!! Agree w/ you about the Shanksville plane!