From September 11, 2021

It’s no secret to anyone that knows me for more than five minutes, I am an emotional person. I feel unhappiness, joy, longing, inspiration, determination, fear/anxiety, pride, hurt, inquisitiveness, et.al. deeply. Like on a soul level. And generally, if I am feeling it, it is reflected on my face. In the case of grief and sadness, it’s usually seen in the form of tears as they roll down my cheeks.

I fought those tears this morning as I watched the 9/11 Memorial and the reading of the names of those who were lost. I was holding it together fairly well, but when they read the name of one of the youngest victims of that day, I lost my composure. He wasn’t the youngest, but at three years old he was one of the youngest. Three. Years. Old. In practically the blink of an eye, a lifetime of possibilities was lost. What would he have grown up to do?

Never forget. As if any of us who lived through that day can? (Yes, I know "Never Forget" is more of a sentiment for the children of today, like my precious grandbabies. They weren't born, so 9/11 for them is akin to what Pearl Harbor is to me.) I’m generally good at explaining how I am feeling, but today I am struggling. I didn’t lose anyone directly that day; my family, friends and colleagues were all safe afterwards. Those around me, the same family, friends, and colleagues, weren’t as blessed. For them I grieve. For them, and our nation, I grieve.

The media talks often of the sights and sounds of that day. The sound as the first plane slammed into the first tower, then the second. The collective gasps of onlookers. The sounds of ambulances, firetrucks, and all sorts of sirens. The sound of the explosions. The sound of creaking as the buildings gave way and crumbled into a smoking heap. The sight of smoldering wreckage in the field in Pennsylvania. The fires and chaos at the Pentagon. The looks on the faces of those trying to help, desperately trying to save at least one life. The horrifying sight of people hurling to the ground having chosen to fall to their deaths rather than be burned alive.

During this morning’s memorial, they interviewed a firefighter who survived that day. He talked about not just the sights and sounds, but the smell. It must have been horrific. He described it as a mixture of death and destruction. It must have been acrid. He said for him, that smell has stayed with him for twenty years.

For me, it was the sounds of that day that stay with me.

I can still tell you where I was and what I did that day. The day started out bright and hopeful. It as my first day as a team lead for a company I had worked at for nearly two years. I was once again working for the manager who hired me, one of the best managers I ever worked with. I was dressed up in my conservative dress, with my comfy flats so I could walk the floor (it was a call center,) and I was tugging at my panty hose. My only concern prior to 8:46 AM was somehow managing to make it through the day without my panty hose falling. At first I was oblivious to what was transpiring outside the cubicle farm I was sitting comfortably in the middle of. I noticed the phone queues went from usual morning busy to not busy. Then, nothing. My desk phone rang.

It was my now ex-husband calling to tell me that a plane hit the Trade Centers. Not much was known at that time. I tried to pull up a news site online, but none responded because everyone else who weren’t close to a radio or tv was trying the same thing. As the morning progressed, news trickled in. People gathered in the cafeteria and breakrooms scattered around the building, watching the TVs for updates on what was happening. Every other day you couldn’t hear those TVs because of the non-stop cacophony of chatter. But that day it was silent except for the occasional gasp as some lurid detail or awful image was shared.

By the end of my workday, as I headed home, the world seemed eerily silent. Unnerving. I never really cared much for silence before that day…I always seemed to have music or chatter in the background. I have come to appreciate the quiet as I have aged. As I sit here now, with nothing but the sound of a humming AC unit, the gentle swoosh sound my O2 concentrator makes, and the clacking of my fingers on the keyboard, the stillness and the quiet are comforting. As I drove home from work that afternoon, there were a lot fewer cars on the road. There were no trains running (we lived close to a set of frequently used tracks,) and the sound of planes traveling overhead was gone. My radio, which I normally turned up as loud as I could, was off. Odd how those everyday sounds become part of our world and we really don’t notice them until they aren’t there any longer.

I think it is that way with people as well.

So here I sit in silence, pondering. On 9/11 the world felt like it might end, and in a way it did. On 9/12 a groundswell of patriotism and unity started growing, the proverbial something good from something bad. When did we lose that? Folks seemed to have more compassion toward their neighbor. Unity was the name of the game. We’ve lost that common bond. Can we get it back, or have we let our own internal divisions drive us too far apart to ever find common ground again? Was I simply too naïve twenty years ago to see that those divisions were still there, covered only by a false sense of unity and patriotism?

Pray for the lost today. Pray for your neighbors, especially the ones you don’t like. Pray for the ones you love, including yourself. And no matter if I am one of those neighbors you don’t like, or I am amongst the ones you love, pray for me. Because I will be praying for you as well, regardless of which category you fall within.