Enjoy.
-A
"In 2001, Lisa Frost was 22 years old and a recent graduate of Boston University. She earned dual degrees in communications and business hospitality, and was one of the valedictorians (summa cum laude) at her prestigious graduation. She was popular and well-liked, described by many of her fellow students as “intelligent,fun loving,compassionate,and devoted.” Professors told Lisa’s parents that she was “a gem.” Lisa's father, Tom Frost, will remember her as “the perfect daughter." On September 11, 2001, Lisa boarded United Airlines Flight 175 headed for Los Angeles. She was flying home, having just graduated college in Boston, to visit her parents in Rancho Santa Margarita, California before going on to start a new, exciting job in San Francisco.
That was not to be. Terrorists hijacked Flight 175 and flew it into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, killing Lisa, and thousands others, instantly. The terrorists believed they had broken the American spirit. They were wrong.
Those victims still live on in spirit, including Lisa Frost. The community of Rancho Santa Margarita remembered Lisa with a memorial near the town lake where she grew up." - Boston Herald
I too grew up in Rancho Santa Margarita, and was lucky enough to have had Lisa in my fifth and sixth grade classes. This lake (pictured above) was the center of our small foothill town in Orange County, hosting many such events as the annual Fourth of July Bike Parade, and basically any and all of our childhood shenanigans. It is the scene of some of my best memories. However, this picture is difficult. Its just... surreal. So much so, that it defies description or breath or clarity. Even 8 years later. Ive seen this picture many times - its been on my blog for quite awhile now. And yet here I sit trying to reconcile all of my beautiful memories of standing in that exact spot with all that charmed innocence and the sunburned shoulders of youth - trying to merge those images with this one. The flowers that blanket the ground. The tears that litter the asphalt. On very rare occasions do I find myself feeling totally incapable of accurately processing a moment, and yet I have felt this onus for nearly a decade now. Time has not healed this. And so I write.
Everyone remembers where they were when they first realized our country was under attack. We all remember the moment that split us into two parts - safe and never again. What continues to be the crux - the non-healing necrotic ulcer - is how personal it all really was. This wasnt just nameless faces on foreign soil, we were all waiting very seriously for our turn. LA, San Francisco, Chicago. I fully expected the sky to crumble down around me at any moment. I will never forget that lingering hollowness that offered no respite. At the time, it felt heavy and languid - the fear, the panic - like slow suffocation. Choking. It was never ending and horrifyingly intimate.
Similar to the uneasy shock of the RSM lake astrewn with the shards of reality, I have no words for what it felt like to see Lisa's face appear on tv.
(In 2001, I had not seen Lisa in nearly 6-7 years, the last time being probably at a High School party of some sort. Early on, I had moved away and changed schools, but still kept in touch with our elementary school posse as they all continued growing up together in RSM, while I still occasionally visited from my Calvary Chapel island. Lisa was always very smart and continued to do well in high school, bordering dangerously on what I considered "nerd territory." One of my few but fave memories is knicknaming her "frosty" in 6th grade, and it literally stuck all through her life. I'd like to think she has me to thank for that, seeing as how I really was the one who never let it die. I love riling up the super smart, its too easy, and she was a great sport. I miss her.)
Like everyone else on 9/11/01, I was in a marathon daze in front of the TV, swaying intermittently between rage, tears, helplessness and inexpressible grief. (I dont think its ever been spoken of publicly, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the West Coast feels sort of... ashamed for being on the other side of the continent when this happened - like deep down we secretly feel we should DONE SOMETHING. I have no proof of this, its just a subtle knowing. Or maybe its me projecting. But we couldnt. We sat. We watched. Helpless. And eight years later - it still doesnt feel like enough. It probably never will.) Reports flooding in of the numbers presumed dead were wildly over and under estimated minute to minute, while what seemed like the entirety of New York was suddenly on camera with a poster or flyer of a missing loved one. I quickly became obsessed with an interview of a young woman frantically searching for her Fiancee. Her words were firmly decided that he had survived and was possibly just lost in New York, wandering in the melee, with no way of contacting her. They were to be married in four days. If anyone had any information to please...
She knew he was dead. I knew he was dead. I will never forget the look on her face. That look made me want to vomit, scream, then do something irrational.
I was deeply engrossed in her story and was dining on my blinding anger, when the local news interrupted with a breaking report: an Orange County woman was on Flight 175. What happened next I dont fully remember. Lisa's face was on the screen and I heard myself screaming. Suddenly my mother had hold of my arms and was firmly shaking me. My screams were deep and guttural and I wish I could say cathartic. Hours straight of the most heart wrenching images imaginable had finally taken their toll, coupled perfectly in that moment with the horrific realization that a fully formed human being I once shared life with had been strapped into a hijacked plane, been unimaginably confronted with her own inevitable death, then flown into a building.
Compound fracture. I splintered. I broke. How does one describe these moments? What words do it justice? I was an acquaintance at best - but her family? Her classmates? I know that her funeral in Rancho was one of the more heart-breaking events anyone had witnessed in recent memory. I cant even imagine what life was like for New Yorkers who mourned multiple people. I still cant find the verbal road to walk down with this. Even after all this time and space, and replays, and stock footage, and conspiracy theorists, and wars and...and really - I got nothing. Horrible? Terrible? Awful? Yes, certainly. But those words feel so ineffectual as to actually be insulting with their comparative powerlessness. So I wont even try.
Lisa is now a name etched into a plaque at Ground Zero in New York City. Simple and appropriate. She is memorialized on both coasts. People speak fondly of her at reunions. Verbose bloggers write posts about how they knew her when. But for years it really haunted me: Did she know? When they took the plane, did she stare into their faces and... realize? Did she look out the window? Did she cry? Did she scream, beg? Did she pray?
I now live in Boston and will graduate college next year. My whole life will be in front of me in 2011, just like hers was in 2001. A decade later. Make your own comparisons and draw your own conclusions. But I am thankful for my future and my family and my friends and my LIFE.
I cant sum this up, I cant put a bow on it. All I can do is remember her. And I invite everyone else to join with me and do the same.
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