About this time five years ago I was watching the towers burn and praying that my friend Lars had gotten out safely.
If anyone could have escaped, it would have been him, we thought - he was strong-minded, reliable, and practical, exactly the kind of person you would want next to you in a crisis. He was a fire-safety expert and would have known what to do when trapped in a burning skyscraper.
But if he had been in his office at the time, he wouldn't have had a chance. He was on the 100th floor of Tower 1, facing uptown. If he had looked out of his window at the right time, he would have seen the plane hurtling directly towards him. From what I've read of the post-disaster analysis, the offices of his company were turned into an inferno. Nobody escaped from any of those upper floors.
On a normal Tuesday morning, Lars wouldn't have been in his office. He would have taken the first part of the morning off to have coffee with his wife. That was their little ritual. But this was an unusual day because their son was starting at a new school and he had gone to drop him off.
Everything was such chaos in those hours and days afterward that we held out hope Lars was still alive somewhere and just hadn't been able to contact his family. But as the days passed, it was apparent that he wasn't coming home.
I went to his memorial service in Brooklyn. The Lutheran church was filled with hundreds of people. At the meal at his brother's house afterward, I remember laughter through the tears, and a Norwegian cake decorated with candy replicas of Lars' trademark bowties.
At one point in the evening, a silence fell over the room. After a few moments, someone said "This is where Lars would get up and start playing the piano and getting everyone to sing songs."
I could write a lot about Lars, but I think this quote, from a woman who knew him in college, says it all quite eloquently:
Looking back, I picture a whirlwind of boyish exuberance. He was always tugging at the world, trying to bring it around to the way he wanted it to go, and fighting for causes that meant something to him. While he was scrapping hard against the injustices of the powers that be, he never let the fight ruin the joy of each day. He was fun to be around and mischievous, overflowing with self-confidence, enchanting with his unruly charm.
Legacy.com guestbook
Marsh & McLennan memorial page with NY Times obit
Newsday obit
Lars, you are greatly missed.