Thunder Dog - Michael Hingson [46]
On September 11, Cherie happened to wake up at 6:15 a.m. and flipped on the TV, as usual, to check the local news and weather. But something strange was going on. Instead of the familiar faces of the morning news anchors, Katie Couric and the Today Show people were on, along with startling images of New York City on fire. It had been about thirty minutes since the first explosion and just fifteen minutes since the second. Cherie was confused. The Today show isn’t supposed to be on, she thought. Then she thought of two people: me, wondering if I still worked in the WTC, and a parishioner who was a pilot for Delta Airlines with a regular West to East Coast route.
Cherie began to pray for both of us, for the emergency responders, and for the other people in the towers. She called the pilot’s wife and found out he was on the ground, safe. Next she tried Karen to see if I was okay but couldn’t get through.
Then she got down to business. Cherie started calling her prayer warriors to work the church directories. “You take pages 1 and 2; call everybody and tell them to pray and then meet us at the church at 9 a.m.,” she told the first one. She kept calling, dividing up the work of contacting the congregation, then headed over to the church. Forty people ended up joining her, and they began to pray for us, for the people in the towers and the Pentagon, for those still in the air, and for the city and the nation. The United States was under attack, and no one knew what was going to happen next. But God certainly knew, and he was hearing a lot about it from the people of Atascadero.
When Cherie first started praying for us, David, Roselle, and I were in the stairwell on about the 10th floor. When she started calling people, we were out on the street, fleeing the towers. When the South Tower collapsed, she saw it on TV and began praying for me in earnest, not knowing if I was still inside or not. I may just owe my life to my wife, my family, my friends, and a woman out on the West Coast in her pajamas, praying for me by name as Roselle and I walked through the valley of the shadow of death.
Sometimes walking, sometimes running, we stay on the sidewalk and move west on Fulton Street, searching for a refuge. I can barely breathe, but I can still hear, and I listen for an opening. I keep telling Roselle, “Right . . . right,” hoping she will find an open doorway. She listens, and through the harness I can tell she is looking. I don’t know if she can see anything, but I’m trusting she will use her nose and her ears to find an opening for us.
We have to get out of the dust or we are going to die. But even in the dust cloud, with my guide dog now blind, too, I feel God’s presence. He is with me. I am not alone. I am running with Roselle.
10
WE ARE PRETTY
MUCH JUST LIKE YOU
This is the true joy in life—being used for a
purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty
one; being thoroughly worn out before you are
thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature
instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments
and grievances complaining that the world
will not devote itself to making you happy.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Debris showers the streets. The horrific sounds continue as the South Tower rubble settles, concrete, steel, and glass groaning and grinding its way downward.
We are running along the sidewalk when Roselle and I hear an opening. “Right,” I cry out. I feel an overwhelming yearning to be inside a safe and secure building that isn’t going to collapse or burst into flames.
David goes with us. Just after Roselle turns and goes into the opening, she stops, the first time she’s stopped all day without my direction. What does she see? She wouldn’t stop without good reason.
I slide my right foot out and feel the edge of a step and I can hear the echo of a stairwell going down. Roselle has stopped me at the top of a long flight of stairs.