Leslie Haskin - Between Heaven and Ground Zero: One Womans Struggle for Survival and Faith in the Ashes of 9/11

2006 by Leslie Haskin

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2010

Ebook corrections 11.15.2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-0811-8

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations identified NKJV are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Lookout Design Group, Inc.

Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

TO FIRE FIGHTERS

AND POLICE OFFICERS

EVERYWHERE...

Acknowledgments

F irst is God my Father!

I believe the Lord fills our lives with wonderful things and unbelievable people when we need them most. I believe in angels. And what I needed most in my recovery besides His arms was the freedom to cry and angels I could trust with my tears.

Thank you Lord, for sharing your angels with me.

Thank you for Monai Holloway, Avor Alexander, Hank and Helga Schieble, Dr. William Rohan, and Sean Young. Thank you so much for those who helped to save my life: Ronald Smith, Eliot Hill, Dr. Ariella Morris, Marcia Kissel, Pastor John Torres, and my big brother and bestest friend, Pastor Lawrence Haskin.

This book is testimony that the arms of God are far reaching, but it would not have happened had it not been for the sensitivity and vision of two men: Greg Johnson and Jeff Braun.

Truly, I thank God for all of the angels in my life!

Selah

Contents

T he story of September 11, 2001, is very complex. It involves seven massive buildings, thousands of people, psychological, emotional, and physical distress, and possibly twenty thousand personal accounts of that day.

This is just one of them.

I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a psychiatric disorder that can come about after one has experienced or witnessed life-threatening events like war, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, or violent personal assaults.

There are many symptoms to this disorder. Most of mine involved the psycho-physiological changes associated with PTSD like hyper-arousal of the sympathetic nervous system, flashbacks, increased sensitivity of the startle reflex, memory loss, and sleep abnormalities. There were others, but these affected me most.

Exposure therapy and drug treatments are most common. My treatments involved medication and a very aggressive treatment called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), which involves having the patient repeatedly relive the experience under controlled conditions to help work through the trauma.

I assure you that it is extremely difficult to take.

Along with treatment, and to help me first remember and then process what I remembered, I began keeping a journal. These pages represent what I recorded in my journal. By no means is it intended to represent the complete story or historical data. There are still many facts missingpieces that I might never have to connect the dotsbut this is what I remember and what I feel. I hope it brings something valuable to your life.

Continue in Gods grace....

Leslie

I t begins.

On the clear and sunny morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, terrorists murdered more than twenty-seven hundred people in an attack on New York City.

Thousands died when at the height of the morning rush, an American Airlinespiloted missile slammed into Tower One of the World Trade Center.

It was first blood.

President Bush vowed that terrorism will not stand, God Bless America was quickly reinstated as our song, American flags decorated our porches, and thousands of American households finally fell asleep each night to the white noise of TV Land and ILove Lucy.

Life changed for all of America in a matter of a few grave moments between a deviant cockpit and the ninety-fifth floor.

I have lived and relived those moments at least a million times. A million times lost and searching for words to describe what happened on the insidethe torment and vulnerability, the confusion, the carnage, and the sheer visceral terror of it all. I struggle still in my description of witnessing the heart of humanity colliding with gravity and of dreams of the slaughtered Twin Towers covered in dust and blood while a somber last breath cries for justice.

Nothing in my life prepared me for what I lived through, and I will never forget... those stairs... the smells... those sounds... the faces of the people.

My soul yet sings its solemn song, and the severity of that day pours through these pages like a stream... so brace yourself.

Every one of us who lived that day has a story to tell about that day, where the terror began and when the nightmare ended.

This is my story, not intended to be a political statement or a means to achieve any bit of self-promotion, false enlightenment, or self-interest. My objective here is to be a gentle light to a world I view as searching.

My hope in this is to speak to all those left with questions and those still mourningthat your faith might be restored. My prayer is that through your grief, anger, consternation, confusion, or resolve, the Lord opens the eyes of your heart so that you will see the hope of His calling. For it is in the midst of uncertainty that the sound of His voice and the silence that follows quiets your inhibitions, and you receive comfort and then clarity, deliverance, and then closure.

Amen.

PART ONE

In the
Beginning

CHAPTER 1
Eight Million Stories
One Song

It doesnt matter what brings us to that place, only that we get there and what we leave owning.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

February 20, 2005
1:30 P.M.

It was cold outside. The earth gave off gray nuances and the suns rays teased the sky. I love the way it looks when Gods breath meets with mine in the open airsomething so big joining with something so small to create a vapor so eternal. It reminds me that life is the only idea of something I can touch. It moves me beyond wordsat least now it does.

I got off the PATH train at the place where it all began. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Nothing happened in particular... not really. Except that when my brain registered the location of my body and my foot hit the platform, forty-two months of spirits and fear, and anger, and hope and pain and surrender, and guilt, and confusion and resolve, and confrontation and nightmares, and every prayer that ever was prayed for me collided in my world. They landed square on my shoulders, collapsed me at the knees, and delivered me to 8:46 A.M. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I smelled it all... all over again, and I wanted to puke.

I looked around. It was all so familiar and yet nothing was as I remembered. I could place every building and every person exactly as they last were. For four hours I walked around that enormous, conflicting tomb, begging the cosmos to infuse me with some answers that made even a tiny bit of sense. I watched the mounds of dirt breathe, half expecting them to give birth to two towers... as if Rome was built in a day.