The warm hat and the faded leaves in the background of this photo hint
at when I snapped this shot: in the winter—the week between last Christmas and
New Year’s Day, to be exact. You might wonder why I waited till now to post it,
until I tell you this: I was saving this for the right occasion.
Today, the anniversary of the worst day in the lives
of many of us born since the end of WWII, counts as “the right occasion.” Yes,
I took this photo down by the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan. The small group gathered around the man in the
hat were listening, as I was, to the story of the “Survivor Tree.”
The World Trade Center attacks 14 years ago were
even more devastating to plant life than human life. Only one tree survived
from that awful day: a pear celery tree on Church Street. Even then, its
survival was a near-run thing when it was uncovered in the still-smoldering rubble
some six weeks later, appearing as only a charred stump, with one green leaf
left.
The guide in this picture—a worker trying to
maintain communications in one of the buildings on 9/11, now a volunteer on the
site—described to us how this stump was salvaged and transported up to Van
Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, where it was replanted. Five years ago, it was
brought back down to Lower Manhattan.
As the only non-oak tree on the memorial site, the
“Survivor Tree” is richly symbolic of a city that has adapted to catastrophic
loss of life. What was lost that day cannot be returned, but what remains is
adaptable and tenacious. It will persist not only as long as there are those who
maintain it, but also as long as there are those around to tell and listen to
the story of what happened that day that changed America forever.
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