Communion

Friends George and Kathy sent us a note announcing the arrival of their second child, Maximus Tseshing Chu. The name hearkens to Confusion philosophy and means conscious or moral knowledge combined with behaviour and deed. They tell us that they hope their son grows up to learn and strive for the virtue of being true, both to himself and to others in all circumstances. Tseshing Chu joins brother Luke Weitse Chu, a name which means the pursuit of courage.

George and Kathy are good parents who will devote themselves to helping their children live up to their names. Right now they are preparing to move from Seattle to Shanghai, where George will do research and development for an American company. Kathy will leave behind her position as a research scientist for a university in California. We are looking forward to visiting someday in China.

This is a friendship in which every year we observe the anniversary of the start of our friendship. It’s easy to remember: September 11, 2001. When events of the day unfolded, probably the last thing on our minds was making new friends. What we intended to do was to “do something.” The day made such a gaping maw in our psyche that we needed to take some action to somehow convince ourselves that it was possible to cross the abyss.

There were reports of planes being grounded all over the country, leaving people short of their destinations. Of course they could find accommodations, but what we needed was to rescue somebody. We couldn’t pull people out of the devastation wrought that day, but perhaps we could find someone who couldn’t get home who just needed a home cooked meal. More than anything, we needed to do it for ourselves.

We drove to the airport at 5:00 P.M. that day through quiet streets. We managed to find the last stranded traveler at the airport, Kathy. It was one of those days when it seemed okay to pick up a stranger and to get in the car with strangers. She was in as much of a state of shock as everyone. When we got home she called her husband George in Seattle and her mother in Washington DC.

Over the next 24 hours we all bonded in the way that people thrown together by circumstances will sometimes bond. Kathy must have spoken with her mother at least six times that day, at first to confirm that we were not bad people and then her mother spoke with us, to make sure that her daughter was not being too much of a burden. We assured her she wasn’t. Kathy said that’s what a typical Chinese mother is like.

On the day after, having spent the day acquiring the ingredients for a feast of epic proportions, Kathy prepared and served a nine-course traditional Chinese meal. My daughter and her husband were there, my two boys, Lindsay and I, my son-in-law’s mother. As we ate someone suggested, “This is Communion.”

Then Kathy told us her story of 9/11. She was in Washington DC to present a research grant proposal to Congress. What she often did when traveling was to stop first at work, in California, and then fly home to Seattle a day or two later. She rode a hotel shuttle bus to the airport on 9/11 and decided at the last minute to fly home. The plane to Seattle was leaving earlier than the one to L.A. and she just wanted go home and see George.

But she only made it as far as Minneapolis that day. Had she opted to go the other way she would have booked passage on American Airlines flight #77 which was crashed into the Pentagon. Some of her fellow shuttle bus passengers had taken that flight and they were no more.

Kathy managed to book a seat on Amtrak for the journey to Seattle. We took her to the  train station and as I hugged her goodbye I said, “I’m glad you’re alive.” We all were glad she was alive. Since then we have visited and kept up the correspondence. No matter what else might be said or remembered about that day, it was to us a day that revealed a certain reality, that in spite of the worst that can happen, there is always the possibility of goodness.

Take Care – John Mann

Comments

[John Mann]

"Confusion philosophy" might be confusing, what I meant to say is, "Confucius" philosophy.

[dorothy]

What a wonderful, practical, holy way to respond to that tragedy. I have to admit the thought didn't cross my mind but I hope something equally creative and hospitable will the next time something happens in my neck of the woods.