9/11 . . . THE BEAUTIFUL ONE

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 – Right now I’m in New York City on multiple missions. Remembering 9/11 is not among them, but it is impossible to be in this great town on this date without reflecting on the horrific event that so disrupted the life of the world on 9/11/2001.

No one alive and conscious then who is alive and conscious today could possibly forget that time, that disaster.  However, in the life of my family, 9/11 is celebrated for something in joyous contrast to the memory etched in the collective mind of the nation.

In our family, September 11 is the date in 1986 when our oldest son, Corydon Boger Lee Nilsson, née Lee Min Gyoo, arrived to our outstretched arms. A child of Seoul, he was brought to us aboard a giant stork, a Northwest Airlines 747 at Gate 8, G Concourse, Lindbergh Terminal, MSP.

Figuratively, our outstretched arms meant my wife’s parents, brothers and their families; my parents, one of my sisters and her family; our friends and neighbors; a photo-journalist, whose photo appearing above, found its way to prominence in the September 12 edition of the St Paul Pioneer Press. (Ironically, it would be the later 9/11 event that would prevent forever more, the sort of gate-gathering that welcomed Cory, and in 1991, his brother Byron.)

Literally, however, the “outstretched arms” that day in 1986 were two sets—Cory’s and his adoptive mother’s.  I will never forget the image.  My wife had assumed her proper place at the end of the gangway, ready to receive her first child.  We would know who he was the instant he appeared, for his volunteer escort, himself the father of two Korean-born children, was a musician colleague of my sister. I stood a few feet away, facing my wife and the outlet of the gangway.

After the other travelers had exited the jumbo jet, Cory’s escort and other escorts of newly arrived adoptees boarded the plane.  We all waited, bursting with anticipation.  First one escort, then another, then Cory’s—with the three-month-plus old infant in his arms. Shouts of glee filled his welcoming assembly in the waiting area. The escort then held Cory out to my wife, who stretched out her arms to receive him.  Her hands clasped the sides of his torso and drew him in.  His tiny hands reached for her, then grasped her dark green sweater, like a tiny sparrow clutching the leafy branch of an apple tree.  She tightened her embrace, and their hearts became one.

I looked on in speechless awe.

That little infant is now a tall man. Much water has poured over the falls that are our lives.  Over time those falls have roared with high, turbulent flows, produced rainbows in sunny weather, and revealed craggy boulders in days of drought. But every year on this day, I savor that moment of attachment—tiny hands to green sweater. And I remind myself that no matter what the burdens, the challenges, the uncertainties, life is good, life is beautiful.

© 2019 Eric Nilsson