Where You Left Me by Jennifer Gardner Trulson.

I used to have an odd, inexplicable feeling towards the generations of Americans who had experienced something so impactful that they remembered exactly where they were when it happened.  Scores of Americans will never forget where they were when Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered or when President Kennedy was shot.  It seems wrong to say that I was jealous of such an occasion - obviously the reason everyone remembers where they were is because the event was so horrific and unexpected - but I can't really come up with another way to describe it.  I felt a sense of marvel at having something so extraordinary happen in your lifetime that you and millions of others would always remember the moment.


And then I found myself sitting on my blue couch in my Alki Beach apartment, eating frozen waffles and watching a plane fly in to the World Trade Center.  At first, I was confused and uncertain.  I did not fully realize what I was seeing and I surely did not understand the gravity of the situation at first glance.  I went downstairs and woke Greg up and told him what had happened.  We turned on the television in our room and we watched as the horrifying terrorist attacks unfolded.  Like everyone else, we were glued to the television for days and weeks.  Eventually I had to make a decision to turn off the news.  I could not stand any more of the tragedy.  I could not handle seeing any more posters of the missing.  And I could not shake the painfully sad thought from my mind that so many men and women - so many moms and dads - had simply awakened the morning of September 11, 2001 and kissed their families goodbye and gone off to work.  They'd done what they did every day and this time they didn't come home.  


Jennifer Gardner Trulson's memoir, Where You Left Me, is her profoundly aching tale of how 9/11 forever changed her life.  Just pages in to her story, we learn that Jennifer's much beloved husband, Doug Gardner, was a senior executive at Cantor Fitzgerald.  As soon as I read that, I knew what was coming.  


Doug was on the 105th floor of the South Tower that morning.  Jennifer was dropping her children off at preschool when her babysitter rushed at her, screaming that she needed to get home and call Doug.  Jennifer got home in time to see the North Tower collapse and a numbness took over her that would remain for a very long time.  


Where You Left Me is, initially, almost torturous to read.  Not because it isn't written well - quite the opposite in fact.  Jennifer writes which such a painful, raw honesty that I had to repeatedly stop and breathe and wipe away tears before I could keep reading.  Jennifer wrote in a style that was different than other memoirs I've read.  Her story jumped around, from past to present in just sentences.  It initially felt a little jumbled to me but then I began to understand that the somewhat disjointed story-telling was likely extremely reflective of what life feels like after your spouse is taken from you in such a terrible, violent, frightening way.  


Jennifer candidly leads us through so many delicate moments in her post-9/11 life.  And when she unexpectedly, and somewhat unwillingly, finds a new companion, she shares that adventure with grace.  I couldn't help but imagine what I would do if I found myself in Jennifer's situation and I think one reason why I enjoyed her memoir so much was because I think she so genuinely revealed all the fears and questions and guilt that most of us would feel if we found ourselves in her shoes.


Where You Left Me is an important memoir that personalizes a national tragedy.  I cried and I laughed and I felt hopeful when it ended.  I will never forget where I was on September 11, 2001, and Jennifer's memoir did a wonderful job of reminding me of the families that carry on each day, each month, each year knowing that the anniversary of the event that changed their lives is always coming around again.  Where You Left Me was such a loving tribute to Jennifer's hero and to the good people who rallied around her and her children when they needed them most.  May we all be so blessed as to have such people in our life when we fall down and may we always remember those who lost their lives on September 11th.