Thursday, September 11, 2003
A terrible anniversary
I was looking through some old files today, trying to see if I had a record of writing anything on this day two years ago. I was sure that I had written something, and was hoping that file names might jog my memory. It turns out that I didn't need file names. I found a text file listing 9/11/01, 11:51 PM as its Date Modified. That took me aback. The date still causes me to catch my breath. The file itself, the stuff I wrote, seems pretty jumbled. Reading it again doesn't make me relive that day's emotions. The date itself, though, brings up some turbulent memories. I remember that my wife and I had been living in the tri-state area for exactly one year, almost to the day. I remember thinking about the time I had spent inside the World Trade Center during that one year. I remember that the radio reports were confused, and that the television reports were non-existent because the broadcast antenna on top of Tower 1 had ceased to exist. I remember irrational feelings of guilt knowing that since we didn't live in Manhattan, didn't work at the WTC or anywhere downtown, and didn't know anyone who was killed or injured, that the biggest disruption it would cause us would be the temporary loss of TV reception. I remember writing about it and wondering what name to call the event (there's still no word that adequately describes it). I remember crying compulsively at random moments throughout the day. Most of all, though, I remember stepping outside of my house in the early evening and smelling an acrid odor, and I remember taking a short walk with my wife, crossing a busy street, looking toward Manhattan, and—though we live too far away to see the skyline—seeing a gigantic cloud of smoke.
Now that I have some distance, it still makes me cry. I've visited the WTC site a couple of times, and it still affects me. And I still have the same inability to express anything meaningful about that day:
I want to say something profound. I want to draw a huge, life-changing insight from the devastation. I want to ask the terrorists what the hell they were thinking and what they thought they would accomplish. But it all seems so pointless. I can only say that in the end, all that matters is how well you know God. And since that's all that matters in the end, maybe it's all that matters now.
Here are some photos I took back in July ('03). Click to see a larger image.
