I was chatting with someone and recalled an event that still tugs at my heartstrings even though the event happened in 1998.

I was working on the 58th floor of a 68-storey skyscraper. Normally we could feel the slight and gentle swaying of the building as winds buffeted it. That was normal.

What was not normal came one day when a horrible storm hit. We could see sheets of water slam the glass walls of the building. Things hit the windows HARD with a frightening crack sound, but we couldn’t tell what they were. The gentle swaying became a sickening rocking feeling. When the overhead cabinet doors began opening and closing on their own, I, as many others on the floor, decided it was time to leave this potentially sinking ship.

We weren’t going to take the lifts. Too dangerous with the building moving like it was. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t. Building management had shut off the lifts for safety reasons.

So we chatted and decided we’d walk the stairs. All 58 floors.

As I entered the stairwell I was overcome with the sounds and sights of hundreds of like-minded colleagues filling the echoey stairwell. Our voices and footfalls were amplified and this added to the hellish descent. No one was panicky but we all were dealing with concerns our own way. Some like me were silent and others were masking their concern with overly loud laughter and comments. The scent of fear and deodorized body odor filled my nose and mouth with every breath I took.

Eventually we made it to the ground floor and scurried along in a drenched tropical storm. We waddled because our legs had turned to stone and wood by floor 30. But we all walked out and made our ways home.

One person was not in that stairwell, and it is he who haunts me when I think of this event.

He was then a 58 yr old man in poor health.

“Let’s go down the stairs” we had said.

“No.” He said, remaining at his desk.

“Come on, man. It’s not safe up here,” we insisted.

“I can’t make that climb,” he said in his gruff manner, “I’ll have a heart attack before I reach bottom.”

At the time I was focused on getting home safely to my wife and kids. They were my highest priority. So I left him, as did the collective group.

The danger we thought we faced was not as bad as we thought. The building is rated to withstand winds up to 400 mph, much more than the storm that day had brought. But our fear and concern that day was just as real as if the building had started to collapse.

And now and again I think of that fellow sitting alone, listening to the whining of the storm, wondering what hard things were cracking against the glass walls, and gauging the creaking of the building. I wonder what he was wondering. I hope he had reached out to loved ones.

None of us mentioned that storm again after returning to work except for light discussions around it. He wasn’t the type to talk much about anything at length on a good day.  It didn’t surprise me that he’d not talk about this either. 

I pray he has forgiven us.