Is This It?
Have you ever found yourself caught in a stampede?
You were pushed to the ground, face down and flat on your belly, you almost didn’t get up. Well, I almost didn’t get up from Ground Zero, September 11th, 2001.
19 years ago, I was a producer for NBC News in New York. I was getting ready for work when I saw on TV that two planes had just crashed into the twin towers at the World Trade Center. I called into the office checking to see if they needed me to head down to the disaster zone. The answer was a resounding yes. I got my marching order from my supervisor to connect with another NBC News producer. Our job was to start interviewing and shooting as soon as we could. As the buildings were burning, orange fireballs were exploding, black smoke was billowing, a huge thick cloud of dust and debris began gushing out.
I was standing and watching just a few blocks away, but I was so immersed in interviewing a married couple about what they saw moments earlier and taking notes that I was completely unaware that the South Tower was collapsing before my eyes. I froze, trying to make sense of something else that caught my eye. When everyone started turning towards me, as if they could run me over, I had no choice but to quickly turn around. At that point, someone’s hand hit the back of my head. I tripped and fell facedown to the ground. I cut my lips and elbows. I got kicked in the head and neck a few more times. I got the wind knocked out of me. Lying flat on my belly actually felt good, I could breathe a bit. “Is this it?” I asked myself.
It suddenly hit me that this was big enough to kill me. But I didn’t answer that question, instead, I felt a sudden surge of energy pulling me up. As I jumped to my feet, I ripped a huge hole around my left kneecap, and blood was seeping out of my tight jeans. I looked away and prayed to God…“O help me, God”. Like everyone else, I started running for my life. It was like a race without a finish line. Where was I going? Where was everyone else going? No one knew. We only knew to run forward and never look back. It would eventually take me four hours of running, walking, and limping with a bloody knee and a pounding headache before I arrived back at the NBC News Headquarters in midtown Manhattan.
Whenever I reflect on that day, this question always comes back to me “Is this it?” When you feel down, when you feel the wind sucked out of you, how do you know you can survive? How do you know you still have it in you, to get up and run? Well, I didn’t. I just knew that I hadn’t finished the job I was sent to do. I had responded to the call of duty, like so many other first responders from journalists, to police and firefighters and emergency rescue workers. Many had lost their own lives in the line of duty. I was still alive, I sensed unfinished business. My work wasn’t over because my life wasn’t over.
Looking back, I’ve come to see life as a test. It is not a test one can pass with brains only, but with guts. Having the courage to take a leap of faith into the unknown, living the questions that challenge one’s commitment to the mission that one has started. When the going gets tough, you know it, the tough keep going. When I keep going, putting one foot in front of the other, I keep discovering the answer one step at a time. So long as we are alive, we must live with many questions that have yet to be resolved even as we are eager to know the answers. I’ve learned not to be too eager to know or to get the answer.
Having survived that day at Ground Zero, I constantly refresh and renew my commitment to making a difference in the lives of others. Even though I am not a TV network news producer anymore, I care about the next generation who are struggling for a sense of purpose or meaning with the work they have to do, or the lifestyle they want to lead. So three years ago, I launched this non-profit multi-media platform (One in a Billion Productions Inc. 501c3) to give voice to Asians and Americans with personal experiences and insight that could help us understand one another’s pain points, touchpoints, and turning points. Our mission is to build bridges between people from different cultures and backgrounds. Our vision is a culture-conscious America where we can live well together and help each other succeed.
About Mable Chan
Mable Chan is a Peabody Award-winning broadcast news producer and media entrepreneur. Mable is Hong Kong-born, multi-lingual (Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Japanese) and is the founder of "One in a Billion Productions Inc” (a 501c3) a non-profit educational media group, that produces podcasts, blogs, video stories with a global community of Asians, and Americans passionate about personal story-sharing, mentoring and networking. She served as a visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard (2010-11), and remains an “Associate-in-Research” at Harvard.