Project Rebirth by Dr. Robin Stern

man who could build a house with his own two hands and some scrap wood, as long as an ice cold Coca-Cola was promised at the end of the day. Life, according to Brian, wasn’t about drama. He explains, “As long as you work hard, enjoy simple pleasures, take care of your family, and lend a hand to decent people, you’re living right.”
    As such, on that fateful day, he simply turned to the co-worker next to him and said matter-of-factly, “They’re going to need help down there.”
    He tried calling his brother, Michael, a firefighter with Squad 41, on his cell phone. He’d spoken to him earlier that morning. No answer. He tried the firehouse. No answer. As he stood thirty-eight stories up on the parapet of the building among a sea of other workers, watching the black smoke drift up into the crisp autumn day downtown, it occurred to him that Michael might be down there, or at least on his way. His brother was a helper too. It was how they were raised.
    After a little bit of watching, Brian was anxious to do. His wife, Lori, called and urged him to get home, come hell or high water. “Swim if you have to!” she directed. He decided to head uptown to his brother’s firehouse in the Bronx to see if he was up there, or if, at the very least, some of the other guys were hanging around and knew what the plan was. But after the long trek up, blending in with the sea of people heading north with briefcases in hand, looks of quiet terror on their faces, he found a completely empty firehouse. No one was left.
    If all these guys were helping out, Brian figured, why not him? He quickly hatched a plan—he’d keep on walking north until he could hop on a Metro-North train and get to his brother’s house in Westchester, where he knew he could find some of Michael’s extra gear in the basement. He’d suit up, grab Michael’s extra ID (despite being eight years apart, they looked enough alike to pass for each other—both stocky guys with that pale, Irish skin and round, jolly faces), and just head down there. He would see what he could see, and help in whatever way he could help.
    After a stop at his own home where he kissed Lori good-bye and fended off her protests, Brian headed out. He drove down the eerily empty FDR Drive and headed west to the World Trade Center site. A parkway that normally carries upward of 175,000 cars through Lower Manhattan, and all the noise and pollution that they produce, was suddenly a nearly silent passageway for one determined man.
    Brian hardly had the energy to notice how bizarre it all was—driving alone on the FDR, a road that he had cursed more than once on other bumper-to-bumper occasions. His entire body was engaged in his mission—his heart was beating fast, his eyes were watching the smoky air drift by, his digestion had slowed down to a quiet grumble. He knew that New York was falling apart all around him, but all he could see was the narrow path he’d carved out in his mind that led straight to his brother.
    Thanks to his brother’s ID, he got through all the checkpoints that Tuesday morning, parked his car on the corner of Pine and Church Streets, and headed—counter to the stream of people searching for safety—toward the site. “It was like a war zone,” he remembers. Fires were still burning. Paper and dead bodies covered the ground. Piles of steel were everywhere. Brian took a deep breath, surveying the carnage in every direction. He decided to walk the entire perimeter of the demolished site, so as to get a better sense of the scale of the damage and need.
    It quickly became very obvious that it would be difficult to find his brother amid all the chaos. There were police and firefighters everywhere, everyone trying to coordinate getting to the injured and buried people still trapped in the ruins. Massive machines were already moving piles of steel to help rescue workers get in to find survivors.