There Once Was A Tree The Inspiring Tale of the 9/11 Survival Tree
There Once Was A Tree...
This tree was a Callery Pear
Tree, planted in the 1970s. It
had brilliant white blossoms in the spring, shady green leaves throughout the
summer, and fiery red and orange leaves in the fall.
This particular tree was planted to bring beauty and shade to a very busy business area known as the World Trade Center. There were seven
buildings that were a part of this center. Two of these buildings were world famous. They were called “Twin Towers”. They were the tallest
buildings in the world, when they were first completed.
The tree saw all kinds of people rushing in and out
of these buildings. Some people came and went day after day. Others just visited. once. The tree
even heard of a man who had tied a rope between the towers so that he could tightrope walk
between them. Everyone seemed to be amazed by these giant towers.
One beautiful morning in
September, the tree could feel autumn approaching. The sky was clear and people began making
their way past her on their way to work.
It was September 11th, 2001.. The busy
day was just beginning when the tree was startled by an airplane heading straight toward the twin towers. The tree was shaken by a loud explosion just before 9:00am.
Full of fear, the tree watched as people began rushing out of the building. She almost sighed with relief at the sound of firetrucks and emergency vehicles heading her way...
... until another plane
began heading straight
toward the second Twin Tower.
With an explosion, at 9:03am, the second plane hit. The tree knew then that this was no accident.
She watched helplessly as people,
screaming and crying, rushed out of the buildings.
She watched the flames grow and smoke fill the air.
She watched as brave firemen rushed in to save lives.
Almost an hour went by. Throughout that time, the tree watched the scene with horror. Suddenly, the tree began to shake
uncontrollably. The sound of a thousand thunderstorms seemed to fill the air. The South Tower began to collapse. The building, the
people, everything inside seemed to turn to a powdery ash. People began to run for their lives. Soon, the tree couldn’t see anything . Then as the dust began to settle, the tree could see a little, but she wished she couldn’t.
Thirty minutes hadn’t even
passed when the tree began to hear and feel the thunderous
explosion once again. This time,
as the second tower collapsed, the tree realized it wasn’t
likely she’d survive. She took a breath and watched as the
world seemed to come down all around her.
Then everything was dark....
... days went by and the tree lived on, barely.
The days turned into weeks... the tree’s roots were snapped, rubble had crushed most of her branches, and her trunk was as black as charcoal.
Things were quiet now. The search and rescue missions were not rushed
anymore, since it had been so long.. The tree didn’t think that she would
ever be rescued. But then, she heard the renewed sound of a search and her hopes began to rise. A team from the New York City Parks
Department discovered her and began to pull her aching wood from the debris.
Only eight feet of her was salvaged and she knew it was unlikely she would survive. She heard one of the rescuers say that she was rescued against all odds, because of her symbolic value....
The tree was nursed back to health at Van Cortland Park in the
Bronx. When she got there, she didn’t have a single leaf. Over the
next 6 moths debris was continually removed from her trunk and by spring new hope had blossomed.
She often thought about what it meant, to be
saved because of what she symbolized. She knew she was special. She knew that people needed her to live on. As the years past, she fought
hard to recover, just like the survivors of the
9/11 attacks, just like New York City, and just like Americans everywhere.
For nine long years the tree pushed on. She never gave up and in
December 2010 she finally made it home. She was carefully lowered into the ground at “Ground Zero” as a part of the September 11th Memorial in New York City.
The memorial is a place to remember, a place to morn, a place to reflect, and a place to find hope for a better tomorrow.
The survival tree is a symbol of hope and resilience. Keating Crown, a survivor of the attacks said, “It reminds us all of the capacity of the human spirit to persevere.”
The survival tree isn’t the same
tree she was before the attack. She is deeply scarred., but she
kept going. She reminds me that against all odds we can rise up, survive, and flourish.
