Dust Lady - The Haunting Photograph



Thursday, December 31, 2015


So today I was reading the online version of the New York Times and it had a section called "The Lives They Lived," which was a tribute to the important people we lost this year. One picture caught my eye so I clicked on the story. Now I know that I probably saw this sometime during the media blitz of 9/11, but quite honestly, today, the impact this photo had on me was great and her story even greater.



Marcy Borders, a 28-year-old Bank of America legal assistant worked in the twin towers. She heard a loud sound, felt the building sway, and despite her supervisor's order to return to her desk, Marcy headed down the 81 flights of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, she collapsed and was choking from the dust. Some man pulled her up and placed in a building across the street where the photographer took this shot. The paragraph in the story that grabbed my heart read as follows..."She’s not running, she’s not falling, she’s not dead, but she’s not really alive either. She’s captive, haunted, already history, a modern Pompeian cast in ash, terrorized inside and out, her eyes pleading for an explanation."


How true this is. Marcy Borders struggled mentally. She couldn't shake the taste of soot, the screams, the fears. "She told a reporter she felt as if she had front-row seats for the end of the world. " She wouldn't leave her home, wouldn't work, was addicted to cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol.



In 2011, she did check in to a rehab center, and eventually, began to work again, attended church, volunteered. However, as life would have it, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer and her life was lost this past year.

...ashes to ashes...dust to dust...Rest in peace, Dust Lady.


Comments

  1. Barb and JohnJanuary 2, 2016 at 4:07 AM

    Really moving, Joanne. Gave me goosebumps and teary eyes. So many of the 911 "survivors" have since lost their lives to mental anguish and cancer - they should be counted in the tally of lives lost. Your tribute does this - thank you.

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