Carry-On Baggage
For a half-hour last Wednesday night the weather and the mosquitoes cooperated and allowed my two year old, Tiernan, and I to sit out on the deck and watch the airplanes. Tiernan is going through an airplane phase. He’s very interested in planes. And he’s lucky, because we live almost directly under the landing path of two major airports. We are a stone’s throw from Teterboro and about 10 miles from Newark Liberty International. For a kid who loves airplanes, we live in a target rich environment.
It was kind of magical. We were having a great time. I was having fun, looking at the planes and telling Tiernan what planes were going where. “Planes going East or that way,” I would point toward the front of the house, “are going to Teterboro. They fly that way and turn in the sky then fly over Grandma and Grandpa’s house and come around and land at Teterboro Airport.” And Tiernan would get all excited. Then a big jet would fly south on approach to Newark. “That one is going to land at Newark,” I’d say and then I would quiz Tiernan, “Where is that plane going?” and he would answer either Newark or Teterboro.
Then I started to teach him about directions, North, South, East, and West. He was very interested, he didn’t quite get it, which is understandable since it was the first time he was learning about directions.
Then Tiernan would spy a plane that was way up in the stratosphere and ask me where that plane was going. And I would say, “Oh, that one way up there is going North and may be going to maybe Boston or Montreal in Canada.” He would point to other planes flying too high to be landing anywhere nearby. “That one might be flying to Europe, probably London’s Heathrow Airport or Dublin Airport or Shannon Airport in Ireland,” I’d say.
It was a Father/Son moment. Guy stuff. Talking about flying machines and directions. I remember thinking that I have always had a great sense of direction, and I wonder if he is going to be blessed in the same way. It was just another daddy fantasy, playing “The I Wonder If Game.”
And more than just guy stuff. It was a special moment in time. Tiernan was enthralled and listening to every word and paying attention. I wasn’t being discipline daddy, I was just hanging out being Dad. I was able to look at airplanes in a different way, to see them through his eyes, as these great cool machines that fly through the air. I was able to get into his head and try to ask the questions that he had but couldn’t speak just yet. It allowed to view planes as an innocent child again. To see them as magical machines that make cool noise and can soar like birds.
It was the first time that I looked at an airliner as a just a plane and not a weapon that may kill me since 9/11. On that faithful Tuesday in 2001, I was walking across Fifth Ave to my office in Greenwich Village, a block north of Washington Square, when I heard an airline flying very, very low behind me. By the time I turned around it was behind the buildings and I couldn’t see it. But, I remember saying to the stranger that was passing me, “That is not good. That guy is flying too low.” And I continued walking to me office, and as I sat down at my desk, my phone rang and my wife called to tell me that a plane had just slammed into the World Trade Center. After that, I went back downstairs and walked back to Fifth Ave, where I could get a great view of the Towers. And while I was watching the North Tower burn, the second airline hit. I couldn’t see the plane, I just saw the huge fireball. And I knew that none of this was an accident and my world was about to change. And the feeling of security and innocence in America was gone.
After the attacks, every time I looked up at a jet liner, I thought is that the next one to kill thousands? Every time the big jets on approach to Newark would alter their flaps or reduce engine power creating a strange noise, I would get a jolt of adrenaline. Look up and prepare to run. In the years since the attacks, the thoughts of airliners as death machines had diminished, but if I stared at a plane flying across the sky for too long. It would stir up all those 9/11 feelings, the anger, the fear, the heartache. And I would stop looking at the plane and concentrate on something else and go about my business.
So last Wednesday, Tiernan and I watching the planes fly by and I am enjoying the father/son moment, and I didn’t have a single feeling of dread or fear. The evening was so nice and cool, the sky was so clear, and the excitement that Tiernan was exhibiting was so innocent, the combination chased the ghosts of 9/11 from my psyche. Eventually, it got too dark and late and it was time for Tiernan to go to bed.
As I drifted off to sleep, I remember thinking that it was pretty cool night. My son and I shared a moment. That is the payoff for being a parent and since the weather was supposed to stay cool and clear, maybe we’d be able to do it again the next night.
I woke up to the television telling me that the British authorities had disrupted a planned terrorist attack involving the blowing apart of 10 airliners from London’s Heathrow Airport bound for America. I thought, this is a joke right. These Bastards have managed to taint a memory of my spending time with my son, as he marveled at the magic of flight. Now, I will never be able to look back on our night of plane watching without thinking about the thwarted plot. Thank God, that they weren’t able to pull of the attacks. However, the plot had its victims, just as my innocence was beginning to get off the canvas after being knocked down on 9/11, just as it was being helped up to one knee by the purity of a child, these bastards, came along again and punched it in the back of the head. And once again, in my psyche, planes are not magical vehicles, but vehicles of murder.
Thankfully, Tiernan is too young to comprehend terrorism and the dangers of air travel. To a two-year-old every plane is cool. It is only the adults that carry the extra baggage that can never be checked. Unfortunately, it is a carry-on that I may never be able to put down.
