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It's officially September 11th here on the East Coast, and it's a tough day, even tougher for me today than the last four anniversaries. Why? Because, this year I actually made it to Ground Zero.
I graduated from College the same year my brother graduated High School. So, since I had already enjoyed a big sha-bang for my graduation, this year was his. However, Mom offered to take me wherever I wanted for a weekend break as my gift, as long as I was willing to wait until August (I graduated in May). We went to New York.
We were there four days, and after meeting up with cousins, friends, and spending way too much money shopping, Mom asked what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to Ground Zero. I felt I couldn't be in New York and not go there. So, we hopped a cab, and there we were. We walked down the sidewalk, and I didn't expect it to hit me as hard as it did. I started crying. I was weeping, because I could see the site, I could see Staircase B, which was the only piece of the two towers left standing. In my head, I could see the people running, screaming, trying to make it out alive.
Mom purchased one of those tourist magazines about 9/11 so she could show me a comparison building to help me better understand how tall the two towers were. The tears flowed even more. I was standing there, and just looking over the emptyness. It bothered me that so many vendors were taking advantage of the spot to sell their wares, because people died there. Thousands of people died on that spot.
Mom asked if I wanted my picture at Ground Zero, and it felt wrong to me to take my picture there, as if it were a tourist site, like Times Square or Central Park. I declined.
Today, as I watched on television, President and Lady Bush put wreaths where the two towers had been, and I almost started crying again, because I had been there, and it became a part of me. I haven't spent more than a day in New York since I was two years old, just a baby, but it was a part of me. It seeped in, and it'll never go away.
The past four anniversaries, it didn't hit as hard. This year, it's hitting really, really hard. I don't want to ever forget. We saw the best and worst of humanity on September 11, 2001. We saw destruction and hate, but we also saw love, the coming together of a nation into a community. Five years ago, when the towers fell, I didn't understand. I hadn't been to New York, I didn't even know what the towers were, or what the size of the damage was. As I sat in school, I thought it was another "Oklahoma City Bombing" type incident, tragic, but not world-altering. When I got home and saw the news, I got it. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen for hours. I watched from the moment I got home, until I went to bed.
And yet, it didn't really hit until I was standing there at Ground Zero, looking at the big hole in the ground, realizing that people had worked there, that firemen and policemen had rushed to their deaths by running into the building, trying to save others. That selflessness is so incredible. That is what I want to remember, even more than the terror of that day, I want to remember how, for one day, politics didn't matter in the United States. Regionality didn't matter. Home towns didn't matter. We were all Americans.
It's September 11th, again, and so much of the country and world has forgotten what it meant. Other years, I have let myself forget. Not this year.
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AUTHOR OF THIS MESSAGE
Muffy
MESSAGE TIMESTAMP
11 september 2006, 04:17:00
AUTHOR'S IP LOGGED
70.160.84.220
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