Story for the Week
Like most people, I remember exactly where I was when I heard about a plane hitting the World Trade Center in 2001. I was on vacation from work that week, but I had a chiropractor appointment in the city, so I was driving into Chicago when I heard it on the radio.
When the first plane hit, the assumption was that it was a tragic accident…until the second plane hit. I got a call from my boss that morning, making sure that I wasn’t in the building. Our office was in the John Hancock Center, a high-profile building evacuated that morning, and they were just making sure that the people who were scheduled to be off were actually not in the building.
I didn’t know Dennis then. I met him online in January of 2002. But he lived in New York at the time. On the morning of September 11, 2001, he was in his van eating a sandwich on his way to work when the second plane hit. He watched it as it happened, and I don’t think he ever got over it. I remember being glued to my television for the whole week. I can’t even imagine what it was like to see it in person.
I didn’t know anyone who died that day, but Dennis did. He was taking computer classes at night, and there was a woman in his class, Jennifer Fialko, who had just started a job at AON five weeks before. Even though I didn’t know her, I don’t have to look up her name because every time we went to New York, we would go to the site or to the memorial, and we would look for her name. Dennis took a picture of it every time. He kept a pamphlet from her in our safe deposit box at the bank (I think it was about essential oils) along with his security badge to make deliveries in World Trade Center 1. He wasn’t making deliveries there that day, or I might never have met him.
I remember Dennis describing how bright the sky was that day. In fact, in the museum, there’s a wall with tiles in all different shades of blue representing the colors that were captured based on how people remembered that day. Dennis always said, “Say what you want about September 11, it was a beautiful day to die.”
I feel like 19 years and 9 days later, he picked an equally beautiful day because that was the first thing that crossed my mind when we walked out of the hospital last September 20 after losing him. It was surreal to me walking out to the car in the parking garage with all of his things, knowing I wouldn’t see him again, knowing that he wasn’t coming home. But when I looked up at the sky, I felt like he chose that day.
I find it hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since the Twin Towers came down. And I really find it hard to believe that we lost Dennis nearly a year ago. As I write this, it’s been exactly one year since he went into the hospital, convinced that he was dying, calling people to talk to them for what he assumed was the last time. Even though I thought he was being melodramatic, he only had a couple of weeks. After the fact, Corinne and I acknowledged that it was probably a good thing that he spiraled that week. He called people he hadn’t connected with in a long time. He made amends with his brother, who he hadn’t spoken to in 20 years.
A lot of things have changed in the past year. Corinne is back in school full-time and earned a part in the theatre program’s fall musical. The projects I’m on for work are completely different from what I was doing before I went on leave after we lost Dennis. We made a lot of changes to the house—new furniture, fence, and windows. We got a puppy. Dennis’s sister and her boyfriend moved to the States and are staying with us until they find a place of their own. We lost my mom six months ago.
Despite all that’s happened in the past year, I still have a hard time believing it’s been that long. A year sounds like a long time, but it doesn’t feel that long ago. It still feels raw. I still see Dennis in so much, and I still think about how he would respond to the things we’re doing.
I can’t imagine what it’s like 20 years later for the families of the people who were lost on September 11. I think of Jennifer every year because of the stories Dennis told me, just because she was always top of mind for him when we went to New York to visit his family. It’s been a year for us without Dennis, and I still think about him every single day. I hope that 20 years from now, people are still thinking about him because that would be a great legacy, to have had such an impact on people that 20 years isn’t long enough for them to forget you.
In honor of Dennis, who we lost a year ago,
and in honor of all the lives lost 20 years ago on that tragic day.
Rest in peace. 💜
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves
273 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: April 2, 2019
I originally received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.
Publisher’s Description
What if you had a second chance at first love?
Annika Rose likes being alone.
She feels lost in social situations, saying the wrong thing or acting the wrong way. She just can’t read people. She prefers the quiet solitude of books or playing chess to being around others. Apart from Jonathan. She liked being around him, but she hasn’t seen him for ten years. Until now that is. And she’s not sure he’ll want to see her again after what happened all those years ago.
Annika Rose likes being alone.
Except that, actually, she doesn’t like being alone at all.
************
The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves is a genuinely heartwarming look at the love story of Annika and Jonathan, told in their present (after a chance meeting in a grocery store) and their past when they met in college 10 years ago. The books flips between their individual perspectives as well as the two different time frames, and I really didn’t want to stop reading.
When Jonathan’s friend asks him if Annika moves to the beat of a different drum, he responds that she moves to the beat of a whole different band. And that’s a perfect description. I found myself completely caught up in Annika’s approach to life and Jonathan’s ability to understand her and to love her. I read the book in two days, and it only took so long because real life got in the way. Had I started it on a weekend, I probably wouldn’t have stopped…I was that taken in by it.
***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***
Annika is quirky, and I knew early on that she must be on the autism spectrum, but that isn’t confirmed until late in the story. This facet of her life is what drives her persona. She deals with the world and people differently, and Jonathan is exceptionally good at understanding her and making her feel calm and safe.
I found myself wondering what could have possibly happened to split them up to begin with, and there is a hint early on that Jonathan met someone else. I really wanted to find out HOW he ended up meeting someone else though because he was so in love with Annika that I couldn’t imagine why they would ever split up. The 10 years apart, however, help her to develop into the independent woman she is even with her careful and structured place in the world.
I will admit that I didn’t pay attention to the timeframe in the chapter headings until I saw September 10, 2001, and Jonathan was flying to New York. I actually gasped when I realized what would be coming. Up until then, the chapter headings had the year 1991 for the past and August 2001/September 2001 for the current day. At that point, I was pretty desperate to finish. Having been glued to the news after September 11, I was anxious about where the author was taking the story. As Annika’s search for Jonathan carried over into several days, I was preparing to write a review that talked about how horrible it was that Annika and Jonathan came back together only for him to die two months later.
I was satisfied with the happy ending, but I would have liked a little more, which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. It wrapped up Annika’s growth pretty well, but it was way too fast. I wanted to know how their story turned out. An epilogue of the present day would have been nice, maybe with Annika and Jonathan teaching a child to navigate the same world that Annika inhabits.
Overall, though, a nice take on a love story that I would definitely recommend.
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