Fall 2001, New York, New York

By Victoria Alexander

My ex-husband was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. I learned about his death in such an extraordinary way that I have to believe it was his parting gift to me.

I pitched in as a volunteer chaplain for the Red Cross, assisting with disaster recovery at the Family Center that was set up in New York, almost immediately after the planes hit the towers. One Saturday, I arrived a little late for my regular shift, which I shared with my then fiancé (now husband). We were walking around the cafeteria, as we always did, to see if we were needed or if we could lend an ear, when I spotted a table of people that looked all too familiar.

It was my ex-husband’s whole family: mother, sisters, brothers, niece, and nephew. They “happened” to be sitting in the cafeteria just as I began my shift. My heart sank when I saw them. I just knew.

As I approached their table I realized that the only one not there was my ex-husband.

I had not seen my ex for a long time, and we had very little connection in recent years. We were exes for a reason.

I hadn’t seen his family in 15 years, yet I was always quite fond of them. Meeting them in this way was surreal. They were just as shocked to see me as I was them, in that environment, yet my former mother-in-law and sister-in-law told me they had been trying to locate me because they buried him and wanted to let me know about the funeral.

It had taken place the day before I ran into them.

At that point in time, just five weeks after the WTC attack, it was a blessing that they had even found his body. Now all they could do was try to tie up lose ends and move on. It was such an odd experience that I was there, on duty, to help people just like them.

When I sat down with his family and they told me the story of his death, I was, at first, numb. I listened to how he’d gone to the towers for a brief meeting at Windows on the World, and I heard of the final phone calls, the attempts to escape, the last words. They were sharing this with me in a way that dozens of other families had in the weeks before, so it took a while for it to set in: This was a story about a man I was once married to, about someone I loved.

In some ways, I tried to handle the experience like a chaplain, slightly detached. When both his brother and sister commented that “he really loved you” back when we were together, I sort of let it roll off my back. Why should I care that he loved me? That should not affect me. After all, we’d been divorced for 15 years. And I was so mad at and afraid of him when we broke up!

The marriage was not a great match. We were from different worlds, and too young to know how to make that work. It was a really bad experience for us both. Although it would help shape me into the minister I would later become, it was not my finest moment. I learned some hard lessons about what not to do in a relationship.

Though it did not last long, I spent a long time grieving that devastating experience and trying to heal my heart from the disappointments. I thought all my grieving had been done years before.

I discovered it was just to begin. After weeks at the Family Center trying to help people suffering through the loss and confusion of those days after the tragedy, I suddenly found I had become one of them. I remember that night how the Red Cross chaplain supervisor on duty suggested I go home and not finish my shift.

But I could not leave. Now, like all the other family members who poured through this place, I too was suffering a loss. It felt better to be among those who understood.

Friends and family were shocked when I told them he had died. They felt great compassion for his family. But many people had a difficult time understanding why I grieved the loss of a man I had let go so long ago, a man I had divorced, obviously, because I didn’t want to be married to him. They wondered how it could even affect me.

I realized, through my experience, that whether someone was your love two years ago or 20, whether you loved a person or didn’t even like them, the loss of someone you once cared for can impact you in a number of ways. Thus, we have to honor the feelings that are stirred up and process the experience like any other loss.

For me, the experience came with an added spiritual dimension: I was convinced that running into my former in-laws – who all happened to be sitting together in the same spot at the precise moment I happened to walk by – was no accident. They were in from out of town and about to leave for home. It was a divine intervention that we all connected, and it was a blessing. It was a completion on many levels. And I believe it opened my heart to a spiritual healing, and even a spiritually cleansing connection, with my ex-husband.

For many weeks, I processed the grief I felt over his loss – just the pure despair of knowing that a man I had loved, I had married, I had lived with, was gone, dead, never to be seen again. It was compounded by the general trauma of the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the fact that I was working with so many of the families who had lost loved ones and were living every day with the sad stories of despair and disbelief. It was almost too much to bear.

To this day, every time I see a video clip of those towers tumbling, it as if I am watching his death over and over.

At least, in some way, I got to say my good-byes.

Victoria Alexander is an interfaith minister and author. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, February 16th, 2007 | Email This Post

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