Operation Find Don

I found the original version of this post in the weeks after 9/11. Unable to believe what I had seen that bright, sunny morning, I sought out the accounts of those who were actually there. Who'd actually be able to put a human face on the tragedy and make me, finally, begin to comprehend that what I had seen with Aaron Brown and Wolf Blitzer wasn't the Jerry Bruckheimer-style action adventure that I'd hoped and I prayed I'd been watching that day.

I know it's morbid, but at the time it actually helped with the healing process.

One of the posts I'd read during that time was a plea from a girl who'd survived to help her find her "disaster buddy." The guy was an African American man who'd she met in the NYC financial district (though not in the WTC complex itself) in the early moments of 9/11. They'd stuck together until he was finally put on a boat to Jersey at the end of the day, and then she never saw him again. She knew almost nothing about him...Jersey, birthday, looked like Blair Underwood around the eyes. All she wanted to do was buy him a beer. Her mother wasn't sure if angels - and that's what she was convinced her daughter's new friend was - drank beer.

After reading the post, I clicked on to the next, and soon it was lost to the millions of blog postings on the 9/11 tragedy. Still, every September I thought about the girl and the man, and while their names had been lost to me - she remained "something with an 'S,'" the blog 'strawberries or a tomato'" - I've often wondered if she'd ever found him.

About an hour ago, I got an update from the most unexpected source, like, ever.

My sister, whom some of you may know has just moved in with me after being laid off in NYC, has been watching the first season of Degrassi High (the old one when both Joey and Snake still had hair) on Netflix. When she got tonight's disc, I found myself trying to catch up. A google search of "Claude Kills Himself" landed me here, and after laughing my way through the post, I noticed the line:

Sarah mixes it up about TV and more over at Tomato Nation.

Suddenly, it clicked, and so did I.

It only took me a few moments to find the post I'd been looking for from September 14, 2001. Even today, seven years later, I found the emotions were flooding back, most especially the ones of peace that this girl, who was my age, had found someone to hold her hand and hope for a future where she could actually buy that man a beer.

Sadly, the update from this past September reveals that while my search for this post that affected me so deeply all those years ago is over, Sarah's search still continues. However, it seems that Sarah has, in the ensuing years, begun to become more and more open to the possibility that Don was, in fact, an angel. By her own admission, she may not believe in them, but there's still that possibility. I don't know. I believe in angels; but I also believe that people, real people, have an inherent good in them that make them appear at the moment you most need them.

Just in case Don is not an angel and is actually a flesh-and-blood man, the search continues. If you happen to know someone who lived in Jersey City, NJ in September of '01, whose birthday is 9/11, and who "looks like Blair Underwood around the eyes," tell him that a girl named Sarah is looking for him, and that her readers are looking for a happy ending.

Image of Blair Underwood shamlessly boosted from his official website.