Caught off guard by the 9-11 anniversary By John Bogert, Staff Writer Article Launched: 09/20/2008 09:12:58 PM PDT Maybe it's more symbolic that this story runs late. That's because Randall Pettit's reaction to 9-11 came seven years late, sneaking up on him during the recent remembrances and returning him to the anguish he'd like to forget. I grew up with Randall in Florida in a golden time where I knew him as Randy and where all things seemed at least probable. In the usual way of things, we lost touch, only meeting up once 10 years ago when he left our high school reunion to attend to a patient back home. That's when I knew that something had changed with a man who had gone from a University of Georgia business degree, to a Florida State MBA, to jobs with the Treasury Department, banks and a Houston drilling equipment company. "I never really liked business," he told me over the phone from Rochester, N.Y. Perhaps Rochester and Randall appear a little far afield for this column. Or they might if he hadn't decided to call me out of nowhere on this past 9-11, on the day that the memories of that disaster's terrible aftermath came crashing in on him. And all because of a profound change that began in the late 1970s with his mother's death from cancer. After that, he abandoned business for two Boston University master's degrees, one in divinity and a second in social work. "I needed to confront her death," he said of his radical change. "With healing I gravitated toward pastoral counseling, then bereavement counseling." Randall was engaged as a Long Island Salvation Army social worker on that beautiful September day seven years ago. "There was a call for social workers to come into Manhattan," he explained. "Two weeks after the disaster there were people all around the trade center site. Some wore T-shirts with pictures of loved ones on them. But the worst was a wall 100 yards long. On it were pictures like wanted posters of the missing. But what got to me was how, at the base of that wall, stood a long line of teddy bears sent by Oklahoma City bombing families. I cried my eyes out." And not for the last time. Randall would soon answer a call for bereavement counselors to work on Long Island with people who had lost loved ones that day. Taking on the job meant buying a second car, which wasn't easy, but he felt a need to help, which he did. That's how a three-month job begun in 2002 turned into a two-year journey of darkness and discovery. Much of what he told me can't be detailed because he deeply respects the privacy of people who lost so much. So I'll blur incidents and omit the horrific aspects of what was essentially a circuit-riding practice that brought him into the homes and hearts of people who were often suffering in isolation. "There was often an avoidance component. When things are this bad, people sometimes back away to avoid the pain," said a man who didn't back away. In fact, Randall went straight into a world of what he called "concentrated trauma." These were family situations, worlds removed from the formal Ground Zero events that have come to represent our national grief. What Randall saw was messy beyond belief; messy, heartfelt and so emotional in sudden retrospect that it caused him to call me on the anniversary day just to have an ear of somebody who might understand. When the truth is, I can only just begin to understand. "There are three red flags in counseling - sudden death, traumatic death and death of a child," said the man who now counsels parents who have lost children. "In all cases the first two were true and, in some cases, all three were." Randall was up against dozens of three-alarm fires, worst-case scenarios that would grow in intensity as the numbness of the attack wore off. "There's a fantasy aspect to this. When there were no remains, some people pictured lost family members alive and wandering around with amnesia. And it didn't help that officials in unmarked cars would come, often at night, to tell people when remains were identified," he said. Then came the payouts based on a person's estimated "value." One man called it "conscience money" from a government that failed to protect his wife. "The money often got in the way of mourning, stretching the process out and complicating it," said the man who was soon navigating an emotional mine field. One exacerbated by the public nature of a disaster that spooled out endlessly in a place where so many people were personally affected. This is the concentration of grief he spoke of and it came his way in the form of misidentified remains, alcoholism, rage, drug use and quick marriages meant to push back grief the size of those two fallen towers. "I sat in living rooms among the pictures and mementos trying to help people express their loss. But loss never gets to zero. Talking about closure and `getting on' with life means nothing. The process can take years. There is no instant fix," said Randall, who knows that he is suffering from the stress of the work that ended nearly four years ago. "It was worth it," he said finally, "because it was all for a bigger purpose. I learned how to better help people who have lost small children. And I'm glad that I did it even though this anniversary caught me off guard." And there's no shame in that, no shame at all in a good man caught off guard. I want to hear your comments. Connect with me at john.bogert@dailybreeze.com