Sheer luck is all that saved some of us
/The Boston Herald
Beverly Beckham
It began as such an ordinary morning. At 8:30 my husband and I boarded Continental Airlines Flight 847, wrestled a bag into an overhead, complimented ourselves on securing a coveted emergency exit row seat and settled back for a flight to Puerto Rico, with a connection in Newark. We were headed for a cruise.
The first time the captain came over the loudspeaker it was to announce a small mechanical problem, something about a flap on a door, a five-, maybe 10-minute delay and a "sorry about the inconvenience, folks." The mechanical problem fixed, we were waiting to taxi when the captain came back on.
New York airports had had a "security violation," he said, and were temporarily closed.
We would have to exit the aircraft for an hour or two and wait for further instructions.
People who turned on their cell phones got the first hint of trouble. Word traveled fast as fire up the aisles that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then we heard that two planes had crashed. We weren't even off the jet way before the words "terrorism" and "deliberate attack" were making the rounds.
Annoyance changed to concern. Being delayed suddenly wasn't an issue. People stood before the overhead TV monitors hushed and stunned. When it was learned that the planes that had crashed had originated in Boston, concern turned to fear.
That's when everyone reached for a phone. "Hi. It's me. I'm OK." All the conversations were the same. A young woman called her sister and sobbed.
"It was just hearing her voice," she said. Another young woman was talking to her mother when she burst into tears.
The cell phones worked intermittently and even on a land phone New York was out of reach. The circuits were busy. The lines were dead. But people kept trying to get through.
State police finally ushered us out of the terminal.
"We're evacuating the airport. Only essential personnel can stay."
Pilots and flight attendants left with everyone else. There was little conversation. No laughter. No buzz of the crowd. No airport sounds. Terminal A was silent.
No one asked about luggage left on planes. No one complained about going back home or finding a cab or staying at a hotel. No one said anything like, "It's just my luck this would happen today."
Because everyone knew what we don't know very often, except in a crisis: That we were all very lucky. That we were alive. That it wasn't our plane that went down. That a mechanical hold even kept us from getting airborne.
The sound of our children's voices was sweet. The sound of their sobs, their relief, mirrored ours.
All day it was like this. Calling and checking up on people because so many people travel, everyone on his way to somewhere or on the way home.
Pat Moscaritolo, president of the Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, was supposed to have been at the Marriott World Trade Center yesterday morning. He would have been except weather kept him from getting out the night before.
My friend Rosemary's husband would have been on the doomed American Flight 11 except that he flew out of Providence yesterday through Dulles because the airfare was cheaper.
My friend Anne's son-in-law works at the World Trade Center and that's where he would have been yesterday morning if Anne had been in New York as she had planned. Then she would have been the one to take her granddaughter Sophie to school.
But since Anne didn't go to New York, Ben took the morning off to stay with Sophie. And he's alive today.
My son had a meeting at the World Trade Center too. It was scheduled for this morning, not yesterday morning.
What a difference a day makes. What a difference all our days make.
That's what everyone in this country realized yesterday. That's why everyone at the airport and everywhere else was calling home to say, "I'm all right," and "I love you" or to ask about someone else.
Because our days are precious and at the end of the day, the only thing that's important are people.
