Every Single Day
Today is September 11, the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. My father would’ve been 101 years old today.
Each year I try to get down to Church Street and find the spot I was standing when that second plane hit the World Trade Center’s South Tower.
I say a prayer for all those who died and for their loved ones who have suffered every day since.
I’m listening to the reading of the victims’ names as I write this, and I sincerely wish I had put off the damn gym for a little while and gone downtown.
I feel like that I owe much to the people who never came home.
Watching the ceremony on TV doesn’t begin to compare to walking those streets and recalling that horrible day.
The awful explosions, people running for their lives, the towers collapsing and the hideous clouds of smoke that blanketed the area—the memories all come back so easily.
I remember joining the crowds of people walking over the Manhattan Bridge and getting a ride home from this wonderful man who was taking people to the various R train stops after the subway system was shut down.
It’s heartbreaking to listen to the victims’ family members recite the names and share their memories of their departed loved ones.
It Tolls For Thee...
The pain has not dissipated for these people, and it never will.
“You are missed every single day,” was a familiar theme throughout the ceremony.
And there are so many young people who never got the chance to meet to their uncle, aunt or grandparent.
We’re still losing people after all these years. Firefighters are dying from 9/11 related illnesses at such a rate that the number of department deaths will soon surpass those killed at the World Trade Center.
My problems are meaningless when compared with the suffering these people are experiencing.
Nearly 2,000 years ago the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius said “you could leave this world right now. Let that determine what you do say and think.”
Such powerful words and yet I still have trouble applying them.
America has change so much since that terrible morning 21 years ago and most definitely not for the better.
Instead of being united by this tragedy the country is more divided than I’ve ever seen in my life.
People need to remember that the 9/11 attacks was perpetrated by fanatics who were convinced they were right and that everyone else was the enemy.
So, yes, may God bless America, and please guide her through this long, painful night that seems to be getting darker every minute.
Comments
Hey, Bijoux!
It's just terrible that the 9/11 attacks continue to claim victims after all these years.
By the way, my late mother would have celebrated her 100th birthday on 9/9, just a couple of days before your father’s birthday.
Thank you, Dorothy.
Grenville has my undying respect and admiration for volunteering to go to Ground Zero. He sounds like one hell of a man.
And I, too, am relieved that he was rejected, given how people who worked there are still dying.
Nice to know your mom was a September baby, too.