Back at Francis Vigo Elementary School in Vincennes, Indiana, we practiced an emergency drill. The goal was to know how to respond in the event of a nuclear attack. If President Kennedy wasn’t successful in negotiating with the Russians, at least we would be prepared. When the big metal bell rang outside the school office, we students took our math books out of our desks, held the books over our heads, and ducked under our desks until we heard the all-clear.
It never made any sense to me. I had so many questions: Why the math book? What good was a desk as a shelter from a nuclear blast? If a nuclear blast would destroy everything, reducing our world to piles of smoking ash, destroying all plants and animals…all living things…why would I want to live? I mean, how would I cope with the grief? Wouldn’t I starve? What about my sisters and our dog? Wouldn’t I run out of books to read?
I pestered Mom until she lined the shelves in our dingy basement with a half dozen cans of vegetables and soups. (Although I can’t remember if we thought to include a can opener, and I doubt we had a way to heat our food. Utensils? Hmmm. I don’t remember. I suspect not.)
But mass annihilation didn’t come from the Russians. Nor did an atomic bomb get lobbed at us from across the ocean. No, the killing blow came from planes, piloted by young men on a mission. Disaffected, brainwashed, and practiced in their movements. Indeed, one of my friends was a flight attendant who had flown that particular route countless times. Maternity leave kept her grounded on that fateful day. But she shook, and her eyes filled with tears as she told me that she and her colleagues had grown accustomed to the handful of young men who never spoke to the attendants or engaged other passengers. The strange young men who sat in First Class seats but who never ate or drank on the Florida-to-New York route. (”I mean,” she asked me, “who sits in First Class and doesn’t have at least one drink or even eat a bag of snacks? Hello? We knew something was up. We just didn’t know what.”)
And so the destruction that changed our world forever on September 11, 2001, was, of course, a failure of imagination. Isn’t that a different sort of lesson? We imagine all the worst outcomes, but we never imagine big enough to encompass the exact crises headed our way. Hadn’t I been trained as a little kid in southern Indiana to imagine an attack on the country and people I love? To fear death raining down from the sky? To expect destruction without warning?
And not a single math book in sight.
Like they say in Monty Python, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
In my personal life, it’s been the same. I didn’t expect to need open-heart surgery, and now I can tell you that none of us expected me to come home from the hospital—seemingly healing up just fine, thank you—only to have a new health crisis. Suddenly, I struggled to stay conscious. My struggle for oxygen was so severe that David called 911. As I struggled to stay alive, the local emergency team arrived. I gasped for air while the EMTs clamped an oxygen mask over my face and started an IV.
It was my first time in an ambulance.
The First Responders sent me riding through the inky night in the back of an ambulance. Somewhere along the way, my author brain kicked in. I rallied enough to do a little up-close-and-personal research. I asked if the medics actually called the ambulance “a bus.” No, they called it the van. They cheerfully answered all my questions on the twenty-plus minute ride to the hospital. In fact, I was doing pretty well after their intervention. I distinctly remember the reddish-yellow glow of the word EMERGENCY as they pushed me underneath the neon sign and handed me off to the waiting hospital personnel.
By then I was a lot better. David joined me in the ER, whispering soothing messages. I settled down. So much so that it seemed like an elaborate false alarm, until they ordered a new chest X-ray. The position for the photographic plates forced me to sit hunched over. I guess it sent my blood pressure spiraling.
My heart rate plummeted to 26 beats a minute. That’s when they told David to leave the room. Someone yelled to get the paddles ready.
After that, all was black and silent. I woke to David stroking my hair. “You’re going to be all right.”
Easy for him to say.
What tripped us up had been a failure of imagination. I’d sailed through the open heart surgery. My sternum was knitting back together as expected. For all intents and purposes, I was well on my way to recovery…until I wasn’t. What followed was a long hospital stay. Working together, a team of doctors determined I’d suffered from an unfortunate drug interaction combined with anemia from my surgery, resulting in a precipitous dip in blood pressure.
Turns out the mind is bad at imagining the actual shape of disaster. It was true in 1962, true in 2001, and true, apparently, in my own chest. Today we remember the people we lost, and it’s a good day simply because we’re still here to do the remembering. But remembering isn’t enough to carry us into whatever comes next. What we need is the one thing we keep failing at — not the math book, not the desk, not the drill, but the imagining itself.
Much love,
Joanna
Hope the worst is behind you. Sending prayers for healing.
Glad to hear you're recovering well enough to write a note to your fans. I know it seems slow, but it will happen! You will actually be surprised how fast the time really goes when it's been longer than you realize. I love reading your notes, but don't worry, we'll all be here when you get to your next note or book1! Take care!