By Denise Oliver Velez
Each year since 2001, when
September 11 rolls around, I take time out to meditate. Today, my
thoughts are centered on two trees—both of them, survivors of hate. One
is at the site of the Oklahoma City domestic terrorist bombing that took
place on April 19, 1995. The other is at the National September
11 Memorial & Museum site in New York City.
I remember going in to work at the World Trade Center each morning
prior to that day. Sometimes I took the subway, sometimes I drove in
from our home in Astoria, Queens, and later when my husband and I moved
out of New York City to the Hudson Valley, I drove in really early to
miss rush hour traffic on the New York State Thruway and New Jersey
Palisades Parkway. I had a beautiful view of the Twin Towers as I got
closer to Manhattan, from the Jersey side of the Hudson River.
I remember all my co-workers at the National Development and Research
Institutes (NDRI) who occupied the entire 16th floor of 2 World Trade
Center. ... I remember the faces of
the security guards, many of whom were immigrants from Africa, who’d
smile and check my ID as I entered the building. I used to greet one of
them in Yoruba. He was elated by my attempt to speak his
language. I remember the man from Pakistan who sold me lunch almost
daily from a vending cart. We would exchange polite greetings in Arabic.
He used to use the prayer room on the 17th floor.
I remember meeting one of my coworkers each morning to buy a bagel with
cream cheese and coffee in the basement area. We would laughingly
complain to the Mexican-American counter guy about the fact that we
couldn’t get cafe con leche, Puerto Rican style. Then we’d head
back up to the 16th floor and get to work. That work, for me, was AIDS
research. We also had a field office in El Barrio (Spanish
Harlem) so I didn’t have to spend every day in a sealed office tower
made of glass and steel. But home base was in the Towers, where we were a
multicultural, multiethnic staff. My boss was a Jewish Cuban.
All that ended for me one morning—a morning that I didn’t make it in
to work because our sump pump broke. Throughout the days that followed,
no matter how sad, angry, or horrified I became, it never occurred to me
to lay blame on anyone other than the perpetrators and those who sent
them. Sadly, I had to worry more about some of my fellow citizens,
blinded by hatred because of how my husband Nadhiyr looks.
In spite of that, and in spite of the whipped-up fear, anger, and
vileness boiling over from certain quarters of our populace, I have
hope.
The Survivor Tree elm at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.
attribution: Dustin M. Ramsey
Things that grow have always given me hope. Flowers and trees don’t
discriminate, and we can learn a lot from that. Out of the ashes of
death and destruction, new life persists. The elm majestically spreading
its branches in Oklahoma City is a symbol of life after a bombing that
took more than 100 lives—many of whom were children in a day care center. Those who died looked like a cross-section of America.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Witness to Tragedy, Symbol of Strength
It is more than 90 years old. An American Elm Tree in the heart of
downtown Oklahoma City, it survived the bomb’s blast and witnessed one
of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil. Today, we call it the
Survivor Tree.
Before the bombing, the tree was important because it provided the
only shade in the downtown parking lot. People would arrive early to
work just to be able to park under the shade of the tree’s branches.
On April 19, 1995, the tree was almost chopped down to recover pieces
of evidences that hung from its branches due to the force of the 4,000
pound bomb that killed 168 and injured hundreds just yards away.
Evidence was retrieved from the branches and the trunk of the tree.
When hundreds of community citizens, family members of those who were
killed, survivors and rescue workers came together to write the
Memorial Mission Statement, one of its resolutions dictated that “one of
the components of the Memorial must be the Survivor Tree located on the
south half of the Journal Record Building block.”
Rowland Denman, the Memorial Foundation’s volunteer Executive
Director and Richard Williams, District Manager for the General Services
Administration Oklahoma division, called upon the expertise of Mark
Bays, an urban forester with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture,
Food and Forestry. Bays developed a plan to save the tree and has taken
it on as his project for the last nine years. The asphalt that lined the
parking lot was pulled away from the tree to begin improving the
conditions around it. Seeds were taken and seedlings were grown. The
tree began to thrive.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Oklahoma City, New York City has its own survivor tree.
A Callery pear tree became known as the "Survivor Tree" after enduring
the September 11, 2001 terror attacks at the World Trade Center. In
October 2001, the tree was discovered at Ground Zero severely damaged,
with snapped roots and burned and broken branches. The tree was removed
from the rubble and placed in the care of the New York City Department
of Parks and Recreation. After its recovery and rehabilitation, the tree
was returned to the Memorial in 2010. New, smooth limbs extended from
the gnarled stumps, creating a visible demarcation between the tree’s
past and present. Today, the tree stands as a living reminder of
resilience, survival and rebirth.
It was the last living thing rescued from the ruins of 9/11. A dozen
years later, one mythical pear tree is finally home, and branching out
from Ground Zero in mystical ways.
For a few years, the 9/11 Survivor Tree was lost.
Well, not really lost. Richie Cabo, horticulturalist for the Parks
Department, knew exactly where it was. Since shortly after 9/11/01, he
had been taking loving care of the callery pear tree at a nursery in the
Bronx. But Ron Vega of the National September 11 Memorial & Musuem
had no idea where the tree was. And he wanted to bring it home.
Vega had heard rumors of the Survivor Tree's existence from
co-workers. Its story had taken on almost mythic proportions: the last
living thing to come out of the rubble of Ground Zero, a charred stump
that, to an untrained eye, looked dead. Apparently, someone from some
governmental agency was taking care of the tree, although no one knew
who or where. Eventually, after a lot of asking around, Vega tracked
down the Survivor Tree and set in motion its second act.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It feels really good to see young people of all colors and
backgrounds in New York City working together to help with growing
survivor seedlings.
My husband’s former roommate, an immigrant from Panama, was one of
the first responders on September 11. He died several months after 9/11
of respiratory failure. He was an EMS supervisor who stayed on the scene
working around the clock for days. My girlfriend’s brother, who is
Puerto Rican, was a Port Authority police officer who died, as one of
the first on the scene.
Over the years, I’ve talked with spouses, children, parents, and
friends in New York who lost someone as a result of that day. They
represent the mosaic of race, class, ethnicity, and religion that is the
New York metropolitan area. Not one of them has blamed an entire
religion. Not one of them has expressed a desire to deport immigrants,
or close our borders. I’m sure there are people who feel that way. I
just haven’t met them.
Me … I just want to plant trees, and sow seeds of sanity. The answer to hatred is love, fertilized by education and empathy.
We have a choice: Be like those survivor trees and spread our
branches to shelter all comers … or wither away and die, poisoned by
vitriol.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~I hope you enjoy this as much as I. Da Toez!
(The fabled Cockatrice) 
(The Dong Tao Chicken) 
