September 11, 2011

This is a photo I took this morning at 6:15 a.m., during a 9/11 memorial at the park.  The local firefighters raised a new flag.  We learned that the park, formerly an army base, was nearly completed when the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 happened.  It was slated to be named Greenfields park, but after the 9/11 tragedy it was renamed Patriot's Park.  

The best I can say, ten years later, is that I still don't know what to think about 9/11.  I know I have feelings about 9/11, fear and anger and sadness, but I don't know what to think.  It seems to me that on a ten-year anniversary, you should be able to look back with the perspective of time and come up with some answers, some reasons, some sense of a bigger picture.  Yes, that day was horrific, but the fear and grief were still so raw and we didn't know where the world was going from there, or if it was going at all.  But now, ten years later, now we know that ...

...

Nothing.  We still don't know why, we still don't know what will happen next, we still can't wrap our heads around the horrible and unspeakable tragedy.  We reflect back, because that's what you do on an anniversary, and all we can cling to are memories.  We go over and over them in our minds, as though we can find closure.  Where were you when you heard?  Remember the week after when ... ?

And our minds are immediately plunged back to that horrible time.  I remember when my neighbor called and told me to turn on the news.  I remember collapsing to the floor in agony when the news reported that the Sears Tower was being evacuated, both because Bill was in Chicago, and because Holy Lord, the whole country is being attacked.  But even then I went about the business of the day, not fully aware of the unspeakable tragedy that had just unfolded.  On my way to work the news reported that the first tower collapsed.  I was so numb in shock that I didn't comprehend the magnitude of that.  A tower collapsing.  People crushed.   

It wasn't until that night when I sat, glued to the news like everybody else, that I broke down.  I saw the people who jumped out of the building.  OMG the people who jumped.  I don't think I will ever get over the horror of that.  You saw the pictures of the people flying through the air, the guy with his tie flapping in the wind, and you just couldn't even comprehend, that is a person, about to die. 

I saw all the paper that blew down.  There is just something so everyday about paper, in an office, hundreds of offices doing business, and the everyday-ness of it makes it so much more tragic.  These weren't people on the front lines of a battle.  These were people sitting in cubicles writing memos. 

But the worst of it all, to me, were the fliers.  The hundreds of fliers that families posted, depicting missing loved ones.  Each one with full-color, glossy photos of a person at his or her wedding, or with his or her children.  Please contact us if you have any information, they'd say.  And you'd know, sitting in your living room across the country, that the outlook for these people was grim.  But you also knew that the relatives had to make the fliers so they could do something, because the worst thing to do would be to sit still.

And all over the country you saw people trying to do something, trying not to sit still.  We bought out the entire stock of flags and patriotic goods at our respective local stores.  We came together.  We sang songs.  We gave money.  We worried and we prayed.

But we never found answers for why or how could this happen?  We never will. 

Still, for me, it is important to stop and reflect.  I realize that there are some whose coping strategy is to move on, stop thinking about it, go on with life because otherwise the terrorists win.  I don't think their coping strategy is any better or worse than mine is, just different.  I need to stop and remember.  I need to watch news coverage and go to a memorial service and make September 11 meaningful. 

But I also know that tomorrow I will feel relieved.  I'll still remember September 11, of course, but I won't dwell on the tragedy and the confusion tomorrow.  I'm reminded of a quote from George W. Bush's speech on the one-year anniversary of the attacks:

"Tomorrow is September 12th." 

Now, Lord knows the man said and did a lot of stupid things in his presidency, and I'm fairly certain he didn't write the 9/11 commemoration speech anyway, but there is something so powerful about Tomorrow is September 12th.  There is so much hope in that statement.  Because no matter how horrible the tragedy of September 11, no matter how few answers we'll ever have about the events of that day, we have to have hope.  We have to get to September 12. 

However, I'm fully aware that not everybody has the luxury of September 12.  For the families of those lost that day, or for the people who experienced that horror firsthand, or for those first responders who suffer from medical conditions resulting from the toxic air at Ground Zero, recovery from 9/11 is an almost insurmountable task.  It is those people I keep in mind today.  I it those people will need to support and lift up, to help bring them to their own personal September 12ths.  Because although none of us will ever have the answers, we do have the capacity to respond to tragedy with compassion and hope. 

As for me personally, I'm grabbing hold of a little bit of that hope and commemorating September 11 like a lot of Americans, both remembering the loss and celebrating life.  I'm spending this gorgeous fall day with Nathan, and cooking a big chicken for Sunday dinner with my immediate family. 

And, in this way, I will create a little glimmer of good in the face of unspeakable tragedy.  Because that's what we, as humans, do: We try to find a way to make something positive out of something horrifically negative.  Ultimately, that's all we can do. 

What we can't do, is find answers.  We will never find answers.  But we can remember.