There are some moments in life that will always become “where were you when”…you’ll always remember that. It will stay with you no matter what.
For the generations before mine?
Where were you when JFK was shot?
Where were you when Elvis died?
Where were you when WII started? How about when it ended?
Where were you when we landed on the moon?
And then…
Where were you when the towers fell?
I was at university, gathered in a silent lobby around a battery operated radio, feeling like I’d been transported back in time to the 1940s. Baffled, confused…and terrified. And angry. Because events of this kind were supposed to be something from the past that we mourned, not something that we lived through now.
Every year this day is difficult for me. I’m never quite able to explain why…I didn’t have family New York, at that time, I didn’t even have many friends there. I had no close personal connections to the event. And yet, the sheer magnitude of it continues to bring me to tears year after year. The memories are as fresh as if they happened yesterday, and the waterfall of emotions doesn’t seem to necessarily lessen all that much with time. Perhaps things like this just take more years than we’ve had to process them completely.
I am nearly at a point now where I can admit that much of those tears are tears of anger and frustration. Not at whomever caused the tragedy, but at its aftermath. In the months after that devastating day…while the world was picking itself up and putting itself back together…we had a choice. We could have held onto that spirit of unity, of brotherhood and support and the world would have moved in such a different direction. But that’s not the direction that we went in, and it’s always made me wonder…why do we as a species always seem to choose the path that piles death on top of more death? When it is so very clearly not always necessary.
And even now, I see the whole thing happening again. Last year we had another chance, and another choice, a chance to see what the world was like when it started to heal and allow that healing to continue…but as soon as we had the chance…that was not what we chose.
I suppose today I feel just like I do on Armistice day, the small child with fancy shoes standing in the mud…with still no one able to explain to me “why”…
Please…always remember that you do have a choice. Every day. And please, whenever you can, just…choose to be kind.