ODUNBAKU” My Gratitude to God for the day I could have died!!!!! By Wumi Akintide

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The day I could have died but did not die 22 years ago was on September Eleven in the year 2001.

The Yorubas in our collective and ancestral wisdom, always give meaningful names to their children based on the circumstance in which the child was born or their own individual experience.

I write this article today on the 22nd Remembrance Anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center based on my personal experience from that tragic and traumatic Episode.

I was a full time Certified Social Worker following my postgraduate studies at the Wurzeweiler School of Social Work at the Yeshiva Jewish University of New York and my appointment by the New York State Department of Labor at 50, Park Place next door to the Majestic Twin Towers of the famous World Trade Center Plaza in New York.

I regularly visited the World Trade Center everyday for my Breakfast and Lunch from Monday thru Friday and I spend a few Saturdays on weekends If I had things to do at my office.

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The World Trade Center was like my second home because I used to spend a lot of time there because I just fell in love with the majestic landmark Building and architectural beauty and design of two of the tallest Buildings in the world but certainly the tallest in New York.

I regularly take my friends and casual visitors on a tour of the World Trade Center up to the top revolving Restaurant located on its 114th Floor.

The huge Shopping Plaza on the Basement and the lower floors is where I usually do all of my shoppings and where I do all of my financial transactions at the World Trade Center Branch of JP Morgan Chase Bank where I kept a Checking and a Savings Account and a CD Fixed Deposit Account during my tenure at 50, Park Place.

My Checking Account there was where my salaries were paid into from my office next door.

I particularly love riding all of the many Elevators just like little boys in Lusaka, Zambia often go to the only Shopping Mall in the Capital City not just to shop but to ride the only Escalator in Zambia as reminded us by the great South Africa-born Comedian named Trevor Noah in one of his “Stand Up” comedies on YouTube.

I quite often went to the Twin Towers just to go ride one of the many fast moving Elevators in the Twin Towers as a form of relaxation.

Because of the proximity of the Plaza to my office at 50, Park Place, that spot is where I spent
all of my 30 minutes Lunch Break every day along with few of my colleagues at the job as I recall.

I was at the Plaza on that fateful morning on September 11. 2001 at about 8 AM because I needed to withdraw money to pay the Gypsie cab driver that gave me a ride from my Apartment at the Rutland Plaza in East New York in Brooklyn.

I remember leaving Bank at the Plaza at about 8.15 AM to return to my Office next door.

The first terrible blast of one of the Twin Towers by the Osama Bin Laden Terrorists had occurred at 8:45 AM shaking all the Buildings in the whole area to their foundations. It was like:
“Eni Sango ba t’oju e w’ole ko ni bu Oloya mo” in Yoruba Parlance.

I have never seen anything like it in my life. I initially thought that the world was coming to an end that day.

It was an “Ojo Buruku Esu gbomi mu” in Yoruba Mythology meaning “the day in infamy and horror” in English Language for lack of a better description of my feelings at the time.

It was the end of what should have been my work day as people, myself included, started running helter skelter from our offices thinking that a Nuclear Attack or Nuclear Bomb had hit New York as the epic center of Western civilization and not knowing what to do or where to go at that point in time.

I just started running to where people were running and the stampede finally ended up for me on the landmark Brooklyn Bridge which was more than 100 years old.

I hear it was the first suspended Bridge in America. The Bridge was jam-packed with people as nobody was sure about what had happened or who was responsible for it as the Towers suddenly began to disintegrate and to collapse or implode following the terrible impact of the two planes flying at 650 miles an hour to hit the Two Towers.

Those of us who were inside our offices when the blast had occurred, did not see the Plane hit the Twin Towers and we could not tell what had happened until we got outside or got home and began to watch the blast on TV as it occurred that day.

It was a day I could have died but did not die, thank God.

For 22 years and counting September 11, has always been a day of remembrance and joyful celebration and prayer worship to God for sparing my life out of the more than 3000 New Yorkers
who went to work that day but could not return home to their families.

When your time is not yet up, God has a way of saving your life and pulling you out of a crisis by some miracle.

That I believe was what had happened to me on September Eleven the Year 2001 as the only child of my mother.

For the first time in my life I came to appreciate why my poor mother was always praying for any Death that would take my life to first take her own life.

My mother had had died of a heart attack at 84 because she was scared to death about anything bad happening her only child in her life time.

You know I completely forgot that I had any savings at the World Trade Center Branch of JP Morgan Chase Bank.

I was ready to forgo everything I had in that Account. All that I cared about was just getting away from that location as soon as possible and getting home alive that day.

But many years later, thanks to America and the power of technology, I was able to recover all of the money in my 3 Accounts at the Bank including my CD Fixed Deposit Saving Account without losing a Dime.

I later understand that all my information at the Bank had a back-up saved in their Headquarters in Dallas/ Forworth in Texas.

All I cared about was the fact that God had saved my life in a miraculous way for which I am forever grateful to God till now.

I could have been dead and gone 22 years ago, to be precise.

Unto God be the glory in Jesus name. You all could call me “ODUNBAKU” from now on.

Please join me today in showing gratitude to God for saving my life on yet another Anniversary of the horrendous tragedy in the “Big Apple” the greatest city and the Financial Capital of the World.

It was a close call for me, but God in his omnipotence, had saved my life miraculously.

I rest my case.