The Enduring Power of 9/11

From death and destruction to hope and expectation

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 11 (HealthDay) -- Joanna Cetaj has an outside shot at giving birth today, and the very thought of it has given her sleepless nights and fits of sweating and vomiting.

Marika Condos bore a child on the same date a year ago, yet she sees her son's entry into the world as a candle in the darkness. While thousands of lives were lost in her neighborhood, one life was gained in her hospital room, and another, her husband's, was probably saved. Despite that miracle, some people have seriously suggested she change her child's date of birth.

Behold the power of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Say "March 27" to yourself. If the date's not your birthday or uniquely significant to you, what comes to mind? But utter "September 11" or "9/11," and it effortlessly conjures up something altogether different. And it is likely to remain horrifically special to Cetaj's child and others not yet born.

The date has almost been stolen from its former status as just another day on the calendar. It's the historian's equivalent of a doctor treating a serious wound that has yet to scar.

"It's tattooed into our psyche," says Dr. Mary Helen Davis, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. "When you say '9/11' to most people, it evokes a powerful imagery, a powerful, affective feeling."

Words usually must stand the test of time before they appear in reference books, but 9/11 took hold so fast that Houghton Mifflin Co. plucked it from the calendar and swiftly slipped it into the fourth edition of its American Heritage College Dictionary, which came out last spring. It is the only specific date in the dictionary. It also is entered only under the numerals and with the pronunciation "nine-eleven," so as not to confuse it with the emergency telephone number.

"It was a watershed event in the history of the United States. We felt that it itself needed to be defined," says Joseph Pickett, the dictionary's executive editor. The definition is strikingly simple: it is the date on which two hijacked airliners were flown into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

But 9/11 means much, much more to most people. "It's a date in which a lot was lost," Davis says. "What was lost was a sense of security in the world, a sense of meaning about safety."

Cetaj, the nervous mother-to-be, describes it as "a loss of innocence" that can never be regained.

Pickett says the definition may be broader in later editions, "but we are a dictionary, and one of the things you have to do is limit yourself to a few lines."

Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College and executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, which studies the language in both its written and colloquial uses, says the nation needed a simple way of referring to the horror. "By designating it, people have all their emotions and recollections associated with that date," he says. The events of that day were "so unique and so scattered that there's no ready-made word that could be used."

Dr. Mindy Fullilove, a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University, says one reason the word brings up horrific images is that "it's so raw." It's also, she says, an artifact of having a calendar. Other momentous events in world history that cause great joy or sorrow -- like Passover and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ -- are loosely associated with approximate dates, she says. However, she adds, "I would say that 9/11 joins that list."

Because the word has gained so much power so quickly, it has made Cetaj a psychological captive of her own pregnancy. Although she's not due to give birth until Sept. 22, her biggest fear is delivering her first child early.

"If the baby's born on September 11, then we have a stigma behind the whole day," says Cetaj, a 25-year-old debt collector in Las Vegas. "I can't imagine myself holding it in, but it's not something that I would desire. It's so nerve-wracking."

Martha Drohobyczer, Cetaj's midwife and a nurse specialist in adult psychiatry, tried to convince her the day was also about people coming together and helping each other, but her advice was bootless. "She had vomiting, nervousness, anxiety," Drohobyczer explains. "She wasn't able to go to work." Finally, Cetaj began taking an antidepressant, which has eased the problem somewhat.

If Cetaj does happen to give birth to her baby girl on September 11, "you just go on, but it's going to be so heartbreaking," Drohobyczer says. "It's going to be hard to celebrate, but we'll just have to do it for her."

Drohobyczer is surprised that more of her patients aren't undergoing the same stress. When she hears 9/11, she says, "I felt something in my system, and I'm not into dates. I'm not a fearful person at all, but I kind of feel this little thing. . . Maybe in another few years this feeling will go away."

The fear of giving birth on September 11 isn't widespread. "None of the women under my care have indicated any trepidation at having their baby's birthday fall on September 11," says Dr. Sanford Lederman, a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology at Long Island College Hospital. "None have even mentioned taking steps to attempt to change the date."

Marika Condos of Manhattan had no such concerns last September 11, a day she describes as "completely bittersweet." She had a troubled pregnancy throughout, and labor was induced early that day. Because of that, her husband, Steve, took the day off.

While she was in hard labor at New York University Medical Center, the planes hit the World Trade Center. Steve turned on a TV, recalls midwife Elizabeth Stein. "He pointed and said, 'That's where I work.' I was speechless. I said, 'Why don't you turn off the TV and let's have a baby.'"

Reggi Alexander Condos was born at 9:23 a.m., while the World Trade Center was in its death throes. Marika recalls her husband saying, "'Thank God Reggi was born at that time. He could have physically saved me, and he emotionally saved me.'"

Reggi was brought home by police escort because the Condos family lives below 14th Street, where no one but residents were allowed. The police, who had been through living hell, had the urge to hold him, Marika remembers.

To this day, she gets "very different reactions" from people when they're told when Reggi was born. The very idea can "put smiles on people's faces," she says. Others react with horror. "I've had a few people kind of cringe," she says. Some do both. "I've had a lot of people just start to cry when I tell them," Condos says. "They want to touch him."

When Reggi grows up, he'll know the historical import of 9/11. And it won't take long: Fullilove's granddaughter, just 6, asked her, "'Grandma, did we have a September last year?' If you think about it, we didn't really have a September. It was an altered mode of thinking -- quite a different mode from back to school."

Reggi will "read the history books and people will react to his birthday," Marika says. But "he came at that time for a reason. Life goes on. I have to associate it with the good."

What To Do

Turn to the American Psychological Association or the National Center for PTSD to learn more about coping with disaster.

Related Stories

No stories found.
logo
www.healthday.com