As people look back on the week of September 11, 2001, many can discover a lot of learning lessons from the events that happened in their lives. As much as the Twin Towers Tragedy brought so much sorrow to so many Americans, I discovered what mattered most in my life.
Every family across the U.S. has a story to share on how September 11 changed their lives forever. For many of us, it brought us closer to the ones that matter most. For me, it was a wakeup call in my co-parenting relationship, and how it needed to change. I have never told this story before, and on the 10th anniversary month of 9/11.... I think it is time to tell.
In the fall of 2001, I was in my second year as a divorced dad, raising a family of three. Getting back on my feet and out of my 2-bedroom apartment and into a home was a priority at the time. Like most newly divorced dads, my life had gone through a tough transition. I was angry, immature and had a poor co-parenting relationship with my ex-spouse. So much drama builds up during the family court proceedings, with neither party feeling good about the ordeal of a broken family at the end. We gave ourselves so many chances to make it work, but far too often our anger and ego got in the way of forgiveness and reconciliation. Our children were young. In fact, September 11, 2001 was our youngest daughter's 2nd birthday, and our other two children were 3 and 5 years of age. I was looking forward to having my three children together that day and having a birthday party at my new residence for my little one. I was just starting to feel like my life was getting back into order.
I remember my alarm clock going off at my regular 6AM start. The alarm played my favorite, morning rock radio station. What made this morning different was that the alarm did not have the regular humor or vulgarity on the station that attracts morning listeners making their commute to work, like me. This alarm was different. The radio was stone-cold silent. The disc jockey had no music playing at the time when he made the announcement. It sounded something like this, "We are getting word that there has been an accident in Ney York City's Twin Towers, possibly a plane crash..."
I had a girlfriend living with me at the time, and as I looked over to her in bed, I said, "Turn on the TV, something is wrong". We scanned the TV looking for coverage and at the time, not many stations were up to speed on the event. I finished getting ready for work and got my kids up to get ready for school. I found CNN news station that was showing the coverage and I saw smoke coming from the first tower. My children were now awake sitting around the kitchen table eating breakfast and getting dressed for school. I had tried putting a call into my ex spouse and she didn't pick up my call so I left her a voice message asking her if school was still open for the day. I called into my office, but it was still too early and nobody was in to answer the phones.
As I was heading to drop off my kids to daycare, pre-school and Kindergarten, I decided to drive by my ex-spouse's house to check on her as the news is escalating on the car radio. I am greeted at her door by her, only to discover that she had just woken up. I informed her of the tragedy and as she turns on her TV, we discover together that the second tower has been hit. I am shocked by the news, and even more shocked that I am sitting in the house that I once owned with her and watching the news on my old TV. We sit there together silent and in shock as we watch the first tower drop to the ground.
Nothing is making sense on TV. Too many TV stations are reporting different versions of what is happening. Are we under attack? Is this going to happen here? Are we in danger? Where do we go to get away from this chaos? Needless to say, we didn't realize that our discussions between us were being watched. Our three children are looking at us a little confused watching their mother and father together talking like civilized people. What a strange experience it must have been for them to see how we once used to act in front of them.
In the meantime, my phone is blowing up with calls from my office. I was a branch manager at the time of a nationwide mortgage company and many employees, customers and business affiliates were calling to see if we were open for business. I didn't know what to say. All of my immediate supervisors were unavailable. I told everyone that called to go home and be with family; business was closed until further notice.
At that moment, I had decided to run to the office and lock everything up and make sure the building was secure (who knew if they would attack my office in San Diego, right?) As I got back into my car, my ex-spouse and I talked on the phone together about setting an emergency evacuation plan in case if things got worse. I didn't want to be separated from my children and I wanted to know where they were going to be all day. Now that I can look back on this moment, I realize that I was too afraid to say that I was also concerned about my ex-spouse's safety as well. She had no family in town, and mine were only an hour away. As awkward as my dialog came out, the message was understood and we talked throughout the day on our emergency plan in case we had to evacuate. You would have never known that these two adults had adifficult post-divorce relationship. We had both contacted our parents and set up a plan on how we could make sure everyone would be safe and secure during the national tragedy. All evacuation plans included sticking together and not allowing the children to separate from either parent. At this moment, I realized that our relationship had changed. What mattered most to both of us was having our family around regardless of our post-divorce relationship failures. Our co-parenting relationship changed that moment and I can now look back and see how that conversation was the defining moment. Our talks of evacuation and sticking together during the crisis was more important to us than the past two years of needless bickering and trying to point out who is wrong in our daily dialog that we once had together.
As the rest of the events unfolded that day, I was starting to sense a lot of fear in the air. I had gone back to my house and watched TV with my girlfriend and listened to her version of an emergency, evacuation plan. At that moment, I had to speak my peace and share my plans. "I can't leave my children..." which was my response to her inquiry. "And it's not fair to leave their mother behind either, so any plans that we have must to include her and my children..." Needless to say, the next 24 hours of that discussion took on many different directions but I never wavered from including my children and ex-spouse. How that girlfriend relationship ended is another story to tell, however, the reality of dating any divorced parent is that your life is involved with all parties in the family, including the ex-spouse.
Over the past 10 years since 9/11, I can honestly say that my co-parenting relationship with my ex-spouse has grown to become very positive and cohesive. It's far from perfect, but perfectly in balance with our three children. My youngest daughter is going to celebrate her 12th birthday this month and I am grateful for the life lessons that 9/11 brought to my life as a single parent. I have a better understanding now on how important a good co-parenting relationship can be during a time of tragedy and uncertainty.