Gail Sheehy Writes of Wounds Still Open at 2nd Anniversary of September 11 Attacks

Gail Sheehy Photo: Gasper Tringale

Social observer and journalist Gail Sheehy first gained fame as the author of Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life (Bantam), but in her new book, Middletown, America: One Town's Passage From Trauma to Hope (Random House), she confronts our nation's least predictable, most shocking trauma -- the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In Middletown, America, Sheehy chronicles the losses and subsequent grieving by the residents of this sheltered, largely affluent New Jersey township of 66,000. Middletown garnered considerable attention after the 9/11 attacks because the township lost a staggering 50 residents at the World Trade Center; its county, Monmouth, lost 138 people. As the township is a sprawling conglomeration of 12 economically diverse hamlets, those who perished included wealthy traders, CEOs and other captains of industry as well as police officers and firefighters. Most were young married men, leaving many families without adequate resources, internal or external, to cope with the situation.

In a statement provided to BTW by Sheehy's publisher, Sheehy said, "Following the families of Middletown over the better part of two years was a tumultuous passage -- through disbelief, passivity, panic attacks, sheer survival, rising anger, deep grieving, and realignment of faith, to the shock of resilience, the secret romances, the discovery of independence, the relapses on the first anniversary, the return of a capacity to love and be loved, and, finally, the commitment to construct a new life. I cannot imagine any greater reassurance of the powers of the human spirit, buttressed by faith, to heal itself."

In a recent article in The New York Observer, Sheehy described how she approached her study of Middletown as her mentor, anthropologist Margaret Mead, studied the Trobriand Islanders of New Guinea -- both were geographically remote [in the Observer article, Sheehy described Middletown as a "large, sprawling, fragmented township"], provincial, with distinct characteristics and rituals. Although leaf blowers, gas grills, and soccer fields are the totems of this quintessential commuter culture, the strategy for investigation is identical -- the observation and questioning of as many tribal members as possible. Sheehy also adhered to Mead's directive to intensify observation when, as she wrote in the Observer, "a highly significant event opens a fissure in the normal patterns of life, [and] a writer must drop everything and go to the edge, where she will see the culture turned inside out."

Beginning her project within two weeks of the attacks, Sheehy interviewed over 900 residents along with follow-up phone calls and e-mails. She immediately discerned the sea change in the community, as people moved out of their insular environments, became receptive to the overtures of strangers, and formed bonds with one another. In an interview on www.beliefnet.com, Sheehy said, "[Local clergy] noticed that people were so open, so needing, so loving, so frightened that they would stop each other on the street and talk about deep things. Not gossip, not chitchat. That went on for two to three months. But then depression settled over the community, and people became almost mute in their shock and numbness and grief."

In the Beliefnet interview, Sheehy described the early reactions of survivors: "The women seemed to be much more open about their brokenness in the first six months, and the men seemed to be rather stoic. But the women took advantage of whatever was offered, in terms of support groups, information, spending more time with their spiritual leader, more intensely experiencing their remaining children. And they were doing better after six months by and large, whereas the men began to really fall apart at the end of a year. By the first anniversary, most of the men were not really even able to cope or understand what was happening to them."

BTW asked Sheehy to describe the characteristics exhibited by the most successful survivors; what has been most effective in helping people grieve successfully; and if the community has moved on and whether this was a good thing.

"The one indispensable ingredient in coming through any adversity is hope. Once a person has hope, it is possible to mobilize his or her resources, both inner and outer," Sheehy explained in an e-mail response provided by her publisher. "The other vital element is community. The word community is tossed around so thoughtlessly, it has lost definition. When I say community, I mean an intimate group of people bound by geography, or necessity or an intensely shared experience, such as 9/11. M. Scott Peck in The Different Drum suggests that it be restricted to mean a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to 'rejoice together, mourn together,' and 'to delight in each other.' Those who reached out to the community, or were reached out to by the community had the greatest success.

"Everyone whose journey I followed in Middletown, America, is in varying degrees, 'moving on,'" Sheehy said. "They are on the other side of the suburban illusion and living with a revived sense of community. Living in the New Normal.

"However, I caution against the concept of 'moving on,' a popular cultural bromide, along with 'put it behind us' and the cruelest of all clichés: 'closure.' We should be aware that the cruelest is the second anniversary. Two years after a traumatic event is tantamount to the day after surgery. The very word closure implies the hole will just heal up and one can then plant another flower over it and move on. In truth, the wound never fully closes after a traumatic loss." --Nomi Schwartz