There But For The Grace of the Big Man

Today is the 18th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on US soil -- 9/11 as we call it. Fortunately, we don't have any close friends who were killed that day, but as Americans, it still hits all of us.

I was on US1, commuting to my office, when Wifey called. "I'm sure glad your office is on the ground floor, and not high up," she said. She was watching morning TV and saw a report of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. At first, it appeared to be an accident.

Within an hour of arriving at my office, it was clear there was no accident. Paul and our old boss Ed and I were meeting with clients to close a big case -- a little girl who was badly burned in a trashy Broward apartment by a fire started by a cigarette. We sued for no working smoke detector, and the insurer for the complex paid us handsomely. The family came to our office to sign the papers and open the Special Needs Trust. The girl did well, and she would be a young millionaire.

Wifey fetched the Ds -- one from Leewood Elementary, and the other from Palmetto Middle. I knew my family was home safe, in Villa Wifey, where it didn't seem any planes would crash. Ed, Paul, and I drove over to Morton's on Brickell, just recently closed, and had martinis and lunch, watching the events on the bar's TV. It felt a bit Roman to me.  I felt extremely fortunate my family and I were spared the terrible fates of those in NYC, D.C. and rural Pennsylvania.

And sure enough, today's Atlantic has a great article by a writer named Graff about the role dumb luck played in whether you lived or died on 9/11. He interviewed thousands over the years, and simply lingering over breakfast, or deciding to return to a hotel to change a shirt meant you missed being killed.

I'm sure my Rabbi friend Yossi would say it isn't luck -- it's the Hand of the Big Man. I don't know, but either way the clear message is it's our of our own control.

I have an acquaintance I call "Mrs. Cause and Effect." She believes that everything bad that happens to people is the result of their own stupidity. If you act smart, like she always does, you remain safe and alive.

I find that absurd. What about being struck by lightning, even ahead of a storm? She replies that she would know to go inside at the first sight of clouds.

I've never believed that. I know we CAN help our chances for success or failure, but ultimately it's out of our hands.

I got a sad text last night from my cousin Ronnie. She's one of two daughters of my late uncle Marty -- raised the same as her sister Ilene. But Ronnie has had a very nice life -- still married to her husband, and the mother of two lovely young adult girls.

Her sister was cursed with serious mental illness, as was her son, Adam. Adam was, I think, the oldest of the next generation of cousins -- a child of my first cousins. I happen to be the youngest first cousin -- the oldest, Arleen, died a few years ago in her early 70s.  I last saw Adam decades ago, but he was known to be, in the language of the 70s, "very disturbed. " I think he spent a lot of time as an in patient at mental health hospitals.

Anyway, Ronnie shared the news that her nephew was found dead in his Long Island apartment. He was 49. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it had everything to do with his mental illness -- maybe a suicide.

But the point is, fate, or kismet, or the Big Man blessed one sister, Ronnie and her progeny, and cursed the other one. I'm sure my cousin didn't choose mental illness, or to lose her son.

So the message I take away is -- we need to savor each day. We need to celebrate joyously and freely.

To my observation, people often die too young, like those in 9/11...or too old, like my mother did, and my mother in law is doing.  It's rare that we live wonderfully and drift away with great love and dignity.

The time we have is a true gift. I ain't nothing if not appreciative, and I will enjoy and savor that gift each day. I'm pretty sure those killed 18 years ago today would all agree.