After September 11, I Went to Ground Zero to Listen

Twenty-five years later, I remember watching the attacks from my home in New York—and the grieving families I met when I volunteered in the days that followed.

As told to Neil Parekh, edited for length and clarity

On September 11, 2001, I had taken the day off from work because I wasn't feeling well. I was home resting and watching television when I saw the World Trade Center on the screen.

At first, I thought it was a movie.

I saw one of the towers and all the smoke coming out. I thought maybe they were showing a movie preview. I didn't understand what I was seeing.

Then it continued.

I changed the channel. The same thing was there. I changed to another channel, and it was there too.

That's when I realized something terrible was happening.

Your dad was getting ready for work. The News India-Times office was around 23rd Street. When he came out of the shower, I told him there was a big problem downtown and that the World Trade Center had been attacked. We didn’t really know how bad things were yet. He rushed out of the house to go see if his staff and the office needed help, but was forced to turn around and come back home.

I was also very worried about Amy. I remembered that she was supposed to have a meeting at the World Trade Center that day, and I couldn't reach her at first.

You of course were in Seattle. I tried calling but you didn’t pick up. It was too early for you.

I kept watching television for much of the day. I saw the families looking for their loved ones and beginning to understand how many people had been lost.

As I watched them, I started thinking about what I could do.

I was a psychotherapist. I knew these families would need grief counseling. They would need to talk about their feelings. Most of all, they would need someone to listen to them.

I thought: This is my profession. This is my training. I should help.

Very soon afterward, I took the train into Manhattan and went downtown to volunteer.

Getting registered was not easy. I remember being interviewed and having my identification and information checked, double-checked. They took my picture. They asked a lot of questions. The process took hours.

I felt at the time that I was being checked more carefully than some of the other volunteers. Probably because I was Indian and looked different. People might look at me and think I was from the Middle East. Sometimes, when you look different, you experience things like that.

Eventually, I received identification through the American Red Cross that allowed me to do volunteer work in the area.

When I returned, there were so many families.

We weren't sitting inside counseling rooms. We were outside. People were standing or sitting on the ground. There was smoke in the air. People were crying and looking toward what was left of the World Trade Center.

Families had come from many different places looking for their loved ones.

I still remember one mother who had come from Boston.

Her son had worked high up in one of the towers. She knew the place where he had worked was gone.

She was crying and talking about him. She hoped that he had not suffered before he died. Then she started telling me about his life.

She talked about where he had studied and what he had been doing. She told me he wasn't married. She talked about what he had been like growing up.

She was so proud of him.

I remember listening to her and thinking about a mother's love. She needed to talk about her son—from his childhood through the life he had made for himself.

It was very emotional. There wasn't anything I could do to change her terrible loss. I could listen.

I did this work for roughly a week during that first period after September 11.

I talked with many different families. Some were South Asian. I speak Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi, as well as some Urdu, and sometimes that helped. When people from India or elsewhere in South Asia found someone who could speak with them and understood something of their background, they were happy to find that connection.

The experience affected me deeply.

I would come home thinking about the people I had met and how suddenly they had lost someone they loved.

Over the years, I went back for commemorations. I saw families who were still grieving.

Young people, old people, middle-aged people—the loss affected so many.

It’s been 25 years. I don't remember every detail. I don't remember exactly where every office was or why my Red Cross identification says “Full Access No / Ground Zero.” I wasn’t at the actual site where the World Trade Center fell. But I was right there in the area, working with the families. I do remember the families.

And I remember that mother from Boston.

I remember how she talked about her son and how proud she was of him.

There was at least one thing I could do for people during those terrible days.

I could be there.

I could listen.