GREATFUL FOR MY FRIEND, ARI WEINZWEIG: Ari presented to over 100 enthusiastic participants to discuss his new pamphlet, A Revolution of Dignity. The audience was deeply moved and inspired to learn to treat people, no matter who they are, with great dignity. Here are the key points on how we can incorporate dignity into our daily lives:
- Honor the essential humanity of everyone we work with
- Be authentic in all our interactions
- Make sure everyone has a meaningful say
- Begin every interaction with positive beliefs
- Make a commitment to helping everyone get to greatness
- Actively work to create some sense of meaningful equity
A DEEPLY FELT LOSS: Last week my friend and colleague, Fernando Colón, passed away at the age of 89. I was greatful to work with Fernando who was one of the world’s most highly respected psychologist and family therapist. Fernando and David Yarian founded the Ann Arbor Center for the Family, where I practiced from 1979 until 1999. As far as I know, Fernando was the first person to talk about the concept of health in mind, body, and spirit. An elegant man who we will all miss very much.
A DEEPLY MOVING BOOK: I just finished James by Percival Everett. The book tells the story of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the slave, Jim. This brilliantly narrated book enhanced my understanding of how awful slaves were treated by their slaveholders before emancipation.
BEST MOVIE: We watched The Longest Day, a movie about June 6, 1944, when the allied troops overwhelmed the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy. Pat and I are planning to take a river cruise from Paris to Normandy next month. It’s interesting to watch the movie and try to identify the dozens of stars in important roles. My favorite was Robert Mitchum as Brigadier General Norman Cota.
BEST PLAYFUL MOMENT: My one-year-old granddaughter Joni and l, giggling and laughing as we play a game together after she woke from her nap. For me as a grandfather, my greatest joy is spending time with my four grandchildren, Ada, Sammy, Bodie, and Joni.
BEST SPORTING EVENT OF THE WEEK: The Lion’s overtime victory over the Rams. Nothing like a close football game to rev up my emotions. (Let’s not even think about the Wolverines)
MOST INTENSE MEMORY OF THE WEEK: The 23rd anniversary of 911.
- I remember waiting for four hours to hear that my son who worked in Times Square and was often at the World Trade Center, was safe and OK.
- I remember driving to New York City on September 14 to help my friend and coaching client Phil Lynch, who was the CEO of Reuters America which was missing several people after the disaster.
- I remember spending much of the rest of the year of 2001 in New York City, helping the staff and families of Reuters who were devastated by the attack. My wife, Dr. Patricia Pasick, also served as a Red Cross volunteer during the fall of 2001.
- I remember visiting the still-smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center.
- I remember trying to work with dozens of people who lost a colleague or a family member.
REMEMBRANCE FROM FIRST RESPONDER DR. CONNIE DOYLE: As an emergency physician, Dr. Doyle was among the first responders at the World Trade Center. You can reach her at cjdoylemd@gmail.com
It was a Tuesday after a Monday and a sunny morning as I drove to a meeting. We were all sitting and our pagers started buzzing. (no cell phones in those days except duffle sized “bag phones” Connected to an antenna that you put on the roof of your car and probably 2 G!) A plane had hit the world trade center tower in New York. The chair kept talking. Another buzz and the other tower had been. The chair kept talking. All of us were ready to bolt to find a TV to understand what was happening. Then it was like a bad movie and real and repeated on every station over and over, New York, The Pentagon, Shankesville Pennsylvania. We all felt helpless. My pager went off a few hours later, my federal disaster team, Mi-1, (Michigan 1)had been placed on alert to deploy as soon as the first teams near the disaster in New York and other areas were on the ground and worked the first round of many deployments. Deployments had teams from all over the country, rotating coming to the site to provide medical care for two weeks each and then another set of federal teams would rotate in.
We knew that we would not care for those who were lost at that point, but for the many police, fire, EMS, National Guard, Port Authority police, crane and bulldozer operators and a myriad of investigators such as the FBI and Treasury department as well as their local counterparts. Firefighters were watering the hot metal pile from the still burning jet fuel 24/7. They were trying to find the remains of those who were lost and their own colleagues.
We arrived and checked into our hotel on Times Square and were bussed through several layers of secure gates, given safety equipment and walked on to a scene of dust, flames on the pile, Recovery workers Police, Fire and EMS were continuing to search. Make shift memorials of mounds of Teddy Bears, pictures and flowers in memory of those on the flights, memorials to port authority police, fire and EMS and those in the towers. Flowers still in place. There were pictures of the missing pasted on available walls, fences and buildings. “Have you seen me” pictures at every turn. Our teams rotated between medical stations situated around “the pile”. One under a bridge between buildings had tents and supplies set up for medical care, another in the shell of a NY deli another in the lobby of the American Express building with its shattered windows on upper floors, and a tent with behind a church that served meals and chaplains comforted. Several other kitchens were set up where we were served meals and had chairs to relax. Massage therapists donated their time for short chair massages that were welcome. There were letters from what seemed like every school kid from across the country on lined paper thanking the “heroes” the workers, for helping. We were asked to take some home. Some we hung up in our medical stations. We had equipment galore to treat most simple injuries, suture, and treat respiratory illness like the coughs that were already beginning in many of the workers. We took care of each person medically, and then many sat down to tell us of the tremendous emotional toll the disaster was taking, we listened and listened. When the remains of a local firefighter, police, EMS, were identified, Horns blasted, all construction equipment came to a stop, the searchers lined up and escorted those remains off the pile and into a waiting ambulance and lights and sirens to the morgue. So many of those who worked in those circumstances started to have symptoms then and now chronic symptoms all these years later. Some have died these last 20 plus years. We all wanted to help.