Opinion: In a Connecticut newsroom on Sept. 11, 2001 and the journey since

It was a sunny, clear morning at the end of August when I met with the librarian to walk through a routine I had become accustomed to in the 'book talk' presentations for my first published non-fiction book, 'Tatyana's War – Escape and Survival on the Eastern Front in World War II.' As with all libraries, councils, or networking groups, which had graciously invited me, I always visited ahead of time to test the connection from my laptop to the overhead screen projector in the library's community room and consulted with the resident audio-visual specialists on microphone and podium. I had learned through practice that the last-minute technical difficulties could be eliminated. By now however, I could give the hour-long talk in my sleep but wanted to make sure that the remote clicker that would advance the slides worked from a few feet away. This morning, everything checked out perfectly. I expected my audience would be a mix of World War II buffs, women interested in a story almost as good as any Kristin Hannah historical novel, and a few friends. As I walked out into the sunshine, my thoughts went back to another morning, this one on September 11, twenty-five years ago in 2001. Having risen early, I had driven into Hartford during rush hour, despite the preliminary news on the radio, still intent on making the meeting with the Hartford Courant staff. I sat with David Funkhouser, then assistant editor of Northeast Magazine, then the Sunday Magazine of the Hartford Courant, in their offices in Hartford. David and I had been working for several weeks on a story about my mother's experiences during World War II as a schoolteacher in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. We had titled the piece, 'Tatyana's War.' The lengthy, illustrated article described her reaction to Hitler's invasion of Russia, her life under the Nazi occupation and her subsequent escape to the West. We were coming to the end of editing the 7,000-word piece, making sure the accompanying photographs were placed and captioned correctly. I had never published anything of that length in a newspaper or anywhere; my prior life had not been that of a journalist or writer, although I had dreamed of such an opportunity since childhood. Emerging from a painful divorce and freed of condescension toward my writing ambitions, something had emboldened me earlier that spring to take an amateur writing course with Lary Bloom, the editor of Northeast. That 'something' was the approaching 60th anniversary of June 22, 1941, the date of the Nazi invasion of the USSR. Working with Lary in class on possible topics, I had mentioned to him that I had translated my mother's memoir, 'The Day The War Began.' He had been encouraging in that way he was with unpublished writers, always supportive, never dismissive of first timers, a true teacher. When Lary suggested that I develop it into a full article for Northeast Magazine, I remember feeling that I had stepped into an alternate universe. My story had several hooks. I had found my mother's memoirs in the attic of my Moodus home, tucked away at the bottom of a suitcase, 20 years after she had typed them out on a Russian portable while helping me, a Navy wife, care for our newborn son. Initially, she was suspicious of why I wanted to work on a translation, but I convinced her that there was interest in the June 22 anniversary of Barbarossa, the name Hitler gave to his invasion plan. Looking back, I had a secondary motive: our mother-daughter relationship had been volcanic in my rebellious teen years, but was improving with my newfound motherhood, especially with the submariner father away. I think Tatyana was flattered that I had taken the time. She agreed to several more translations and even allowed Michael McAndrews, then a Hartford Courant photographer, to travel to her home in Sea Cliff, New York to photograph her in her library. We sat in the offices of the Courant on Broad Street that morning, looking through photographs, with David even hinting at a possible cover. That was inconceivable and because of the events unfolding in New York City that morning, I couldn't be certain of anything. Then someone turned on the TV at around 9:30 am, showing the North Tower on fire. By then, a second plane has hit the South Tower at 9:01 so there is no doubt that this is not a mishap, but an orchestrated act of terrorism. We stop all work and sit there, transfixed by the iconic image of the World Trade Towers ablaze in smoke. The newsroom is in silent shock. And then, at 9:59 the South Tower begins to pancake down through all its floors, the total collapse taking just seconds. News outlets are reporting, but all I can think of is how many thousands of people occupy that building during weekdays. Am I watching the horrific deaths of 20,000? 30,000? We leave the newsroom minutes later, and I drive home wondering if they are dismissing the elementary school where my then 8-year-old daughter, Katia, might be waiting for me to pick her up. They keep the kids in school. Life as we know it changes forever. Sunday, the September 16 issue of Northeast Magazine, comes out with this cover, with the 9/11 story on an inside page, reported by Joel Lang, and a byline by Colin McEnroe. I never understood the decision to go ahead with the article for that issue, except that maybe the editors of Northeast wanted to provide a diversion from the horror of the preceding days, with enough photographs of the World Trade Towers in the media coverage. In the 25 years since, I took on the journey of working on the book-length translation of my mother's life, until she forbade me to go any further. Only after she died in 2007 was I able to complete what would become the book, 'Tatyana's War, Escape and Survival on the Eastern Front in World War II,' published in 2024, and now the focus of my book talks in Connecticut. As my mother's favorite author, Count Tolstoy, wrote, 'Living life is not like crossing a field.' Author Helen Charov lives in Connecticut