Woman holding her skirt down while she jumped on 911

Never Forget

It is the 23rd anniversary of September 11. Whenever I hear the number 911, I think of that day 23 years ago. 911 is the number to call in an emergency, but I don’t associate those numbers with a phone call. No, I think of turning on the television on that sunny day after I learned what happened. After watching people covered in ashes running away from the Twin Towers, I felt afraid and sick and in shock. But when I saw that woman, time stopped for me. How long was it for her? Seconds? A minute? Two? I didn’t see her jump. She was falling when I saw her, falling slowly out of the sky, falling, floating down. Her skirt was billowing in the wind and she was holding it with her hands. She was trying to keep the skirt from flying up. I didn’t question why she held onto her skirt. It’s just what women do. And what little girls do. The act of holding your skirt, smoothing it out, brushing crumbs away is instinctively built in. Genetic. You know how to wear a skirt. It’s different than wearing pants. You hold it up a little to get into your car. You hold it some to keep from getting wet when you step in puddles, or snow, hold it up a bit to walk on ice. You want to see where you’re going, to see where you could land. Maybe she wanted to see where she was going. Hoping until the last second that she might land even if things got broken.

As she descended, I imagined that she was being held in the arms of an angel who carried her away from the fire, the heat, and the other bodies.

Her body landed on the ground, but her spirit had already been whisked away from that horror. She went to a better place.

I think of her often, not just on 911. I say a prayer for her. Was she married or single, a widow, divorced? Did she have children? I’m certain people miss her even now. Many people observed her falling that morning. She is known as the woman who jumped while holding her skirt. I tried to find a photo of her but wasn’t successful. I found many articles about her. Someone out there has a video of her falling. I’m including part of an article written about the falling woman. The author says so many things that I feel.

The Woman Who Jumped: Courage Through Tragedy

By Elizabeth McCourt, Contributor Sep 2, 2016, 10:23 AM EDT. This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform.

“There was an article written about this woman. The author discusses a news show and the “decency” quote. The guest on the show describes how he interpreted the act of the woman smoothing her skirt as “her last act of decency.” Reading the quote about the woman pinged my heart and wouldn’t let go. Maybe it’s because when I’m nervous, I do exactly what she did before she stepped off the North Tower. The smoothing of my skirt is both precise and calming, allowing me to carry on with what I need to do.

I choose to believe she didn’t care about modesty or anything else having to do with her skirt, hair or shoes at that moment with wind, flames and debris swirling around her. I close my eyes and feel her trying to pull herself together, gather every bit of strength she had, making one last courageous decision.
No, I remember in 2005 September was the night before we were evacuating for hurricane Rita so we all had trouble sleeping and a documentary’s on about the people who fell and it talked about her and showed her, she had chin length dirty blonde brownish hair, and she was falling in the position you’d sit at a table at bent at the waist, and she was wearing a khaki skirt, and she was holding it down, and you could kinda see her face, she looked at peace, almost angelic unlike the others who kinda went hard flipping and twisting, she looked graceful, I thought for a moment, that woman is me. The vision is seared in my mind, unshakable. Would I have had her courage? Or, would I have been paralyzed with hope that we would be rescued on the upper floors of the Twin Towers? The terror is palpable, even now. The jump. Not suicide: choice.

The image of that woman stays with me. I carry her in my heart to remind me that if I can’t be courageous in my life for me, then at least I can do it for her. She is missed, even by those who only knew her peripherally. She could not have realized her impact, even now on me, a stranger, 15 years later. *(It is now the 23rd anniversary.)

I want to believe this woman who jumped was like me, and that I too could make such a courageous decision. I remember being very haunted by her cause you could see her facial features so clearly. So graceful yet I felt like I should shy away. I’ll always remember her face. Maybe that’s why it’s been hard to find. I’ve looked as the years have passed and I can’t find her…
In this small way…I hope to honor her and all the others who died that day.”

My eulogy for the woman who jumped on 911

A white skirt. A skirt to wear on your last day on Earth. A skirt to die in. A white skirt. Brides wear white. Babies get baptised in white clothes. We think of angels dressed in white gowns with white wings. White. Clean. Fresh. New. I visualize heaven being made of white clouds. I hope the woman in the white skirt is never forgotten.