I don’t think he made that up, but he used to say it frequently. I don’t know what he would have said to America, and the world, if a horror like Tuesday’s attacks had happened while he was president. But I hope, along with many other things, that he would have said that. Because in so much darkness, it’s a blink of light-small as a firefly, but something. And because it’s true. We saw that on Tuesday. We heard about it; we’ll be hearing about it for a long time.
I wish I could talk to my father about this, but I can’t. Alzheimer’s has made that impossible. I wish I knew what he would say to the country, but I don’t-not really. I know, however, that he would be a large shoulder to lean on, and a comforting presence for a country that seems so small when shuddered by so much fear. We are haunted by images that will never be stitched together in a way that makes sense. There is a grief so deep, and a numbness so gripping, that none of us will ever be the same ever again.
In 1982 I was in England, and I was irritated that Scotland Yard had joined with my Secret Service agents, making my “entourage” of security personnel much larger than it usually was. On an early morning walk through Hyde Park, a Secret Service agent said “Terrorism is going to come to the United States,” he told me. “It’s going to come in ways that you can’t imagine. It’s going to be horrible. It’s only a matter of time.” A light mist swirled around us, the day was chilly and still. His warning seemed impossible.
I wanted him to be wrong. For a long time, I thought maybe he was. Then Oklahoma City happened. Then yesterday happened. The distance between thinking about something as horrifying as terrorism, and experiencing it, is vast.
A friend of mine in New York-when I finally got through to him-said that on the Upper West Side, where he lives and where I used to live, there was an eerie quiet. The subways were shut down, there was no background rumble. Clusters of people were walking long distances, heading uptown, escaping the devastation downtown, many of them weeping.
In cities across the country people were quiet, numb. The skies were empty and still, with no planes traveling across the blue expanse.
There was a man standing on the guardrail of Pacific Coast Highway this morning waving a ragged American flag. He looked familiar; I think he’s one of the homeless men who regularly approaches cars at red lights. He usually asks for money. Maybe everyone looks familiar on a day like this. You look into other eyes and see your own. You run into your own fear, your own confusion.
The phone lines were jammed. When I got through, I said I love you to friends who I don’t always say that to, although I have in the past. I thought about my father. I thought about what he used to tell me about jammed phone lines and crowded highways, and what’s really important when terrible things shatter the world.
A few people called from the planes that were about to be flown into buildings. They called their families. They called to say I love you. Along with everything else-the images and the grief that we will keep struggling to get our minds around-those calls will also be part of the legacy of a day that changed all of us.
