When Kindness Wins

"If the terrorists had hoped their attacks would reveal the weaknesses in western society, the events in Gander proved its strength."

Books are my preferred form of escape.  In this age of all things technical, the availability of things to watch makes it easy get absorbed in the screen.  But I still love to plop down with a book with real pages.  I usually have several on the go at any one time, but sometimes there will be one that I can’t put down so it takes priority.

Someone recommended a book to me a while back, but it wasn’t until September of last year that I got it into my Amazon cart and placed the order.  It arrived right away, but I still had a few others I was reading, so it went to the bottom of my “current reads” pile.  I was struggling to get through one of the books in the pile, so I moved this one up the list.  Once I started, every other book got set aside.  The book is The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede.  I was especially interested because Jim had once been a staff writer for our local newspaper, The Spokesman Review. 

The Day the World Came to Town is the story of 38 jetliners bound for the United States from all over the world on September 11, 2001.  That monumental day in history was the day that the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York were levelled by airplanes taken over by terrorists.  Another crashed into the Pentagon and another, directed toward the nation’s capital, was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania.  It was that day that stopped time.  Once it was understood that these acts were intentional, US airspace was closed.  There were over 4,500 aircraft in US airspace that immediately had to find places to land. Suddenly those 38 jetliners headed for the United States had to be rerouted. 

One of the available airfields was a large former military airport in Gander, Newfoundland.  When it opened in 1938, it was the largest airport in the world.  After World War 2, it became a refueling hub for commercial airliners and private jets from everywhere.  When panic ensued after the US was shut down, Gander offered a place for so many planes to safely land.  And so they did, with their 6600 passengers and crew members.  This is the story of how the small town of Gander, with its approximately 10,000 residents, became refuge for each and every one of those passengers and flight crew members stranded far from home and their original destinations in the US. 

The author did so much research and so many interviews to capture the stories of only a few of those passengers as well as the people of Gander and surrounding towns who dropped what they were doing to welcome and care for 6600 people who had no place to go.  They provided shelter, food, clothing, blankets.  They opened their homes for people to shower and have a hot meal.  They emptied their cupboards and closets.   Local businesses emptied their shelves.  Gander residents loaned their cars, telephones and computers to these strangers. The people of Gander embraced their role and gave up their own comfort to help in any way they could.  There are too many stories of remarkable kindness to even begin to tell them here. 

I was so moved by this book.  It’s not a literary monster.  It’s written simply and factually.  The short chapters skip from person to person as their stories are told.  Most of what happened in Gander was basic human decency.  But what made it so unique was that the friendly little town in a remote part of Canada that few visited stopped life to take on an overwhelming challenge and did so without blinking and with extraordinary kindness and compassion regardless of race, religion, or language barriers. If you’re looking for something to remind you that there’s good to be found in this troubled world, this book will provide just that.  It’s uplifting and inspiring and just the kind of positivity we need in the world today.