I am posting tonight instead of tomorrow to honor those who died tragically on September 11, 2001 in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Somerset County, PA. Nearly 3000 people died in a terror attack on the United States 19 years ago tomorrow. Like most Americans of a certain age I remember where I was and what I was doing. I remember feeding my young children breakfast, my son was just past his first birthday and my daughter was 4. My husband was upstairs getting ready for a final job interview for a job that he was guaranteed to get but didn’t because of the ensuing chaos. I had switched the television from some God awful cartoon to Good Morning America and watched as smoke poured out of the North Tower. I was in shock at the thought of such a terrible accident. I listened to Charles Gibson talk about how they didn’t know the circumstances but an airplane crashed into the North Tower of the Twin Towers… as he and the other talking heads talked and speculated, expressed sorrow and fear, as I watched feeling every word they said right along with them, as my babies ate their breakfast…. I then watched the lives of hundreds of my people, your people, our people, on an entire plane and several floors of office building get snuffed out as another plane crashed into the South Tower of the Twin Towers. The shock that zapped through my body was mirrored by that of the anchors of Good Morning America as we realized at the exact same moment that This. Was. No. Accident.
I remember almost passing out as the realization of what I had just witnessed, of what my children had just witnessed, of what was actually happening before my every eyes, hit me. This was my country being attacked and my people, your people, our people were being murdered. We didn’t know who was behind it. We only knew that we didn’t know anything. I watched as my people, your people, our people, jumped out of buildings, I watch as smoke billowed from the windows of these giant sky scrapers….I knew that life as I had known it would never be the same. As the news flooded in, as footage from across NYC came across the wire and into my living room, we got word of another plane, crashed into the Pentagon. Whoever had attacked us hit us at our economic center and our military center of power. Were they finished? What was next?
I switched between ABC and Fox News and watched as more people died, burned, suffocated…. I could feel in my bones the pain and suffering of thousands of strangers. I could feel my soul shatter under the weight of the collective fear and devastating, collective, loss…. we ALL took this personally. This was my family, your family, our family, being slaughtered. And in the haze of this collective pain and shock we watched the South Tower fall. And I felt YOUR pain as surely as you felt mine and we were forever connected. To this day I will never forget the sight of this behemoth of commerce simply collapse into dust and debris. My mind was unable to fully comprehend that I was watching as many more hundreds of lives winked out but not before suffering the fear, panic, and terror of the world literally falling down around them. My people. Your people. Our people. And as we tried to process all of this we found out about a fourth plane crash, this one in my home state, in a field in the middle of no where. Was this a real accident? Was it a thwarted attack? Of course, we wouldn’t know the details of Flight 93 until later, the distinct heroism of my people, your people, our people…. But before we ever knew their fate, their choice, their sacrifice, we watched the North Tower collapse.
As I watched the death and destruction, as I began to understand the scope of what had been done to my country, your country, our country…. to my people, your people, our people, I immediately began to take notice of the police officers, firefighters, first responders, and other normal every day people as they laid down their lives to save who they could wherever they were. I saw you lay down your life for me and mine and you saw me lay my life down for you and yours because in that moment, on that day and the days that followed THE people became OUR people. There was no distinction simply- they belonged to us. I saw America respond the way America always responds to crisis, or at least how it used to…. coming together, giving of one another, sacrificing for one another, loving one another… I watched America reborn as these every day heroes sacrificed everything they had to save those who could not save themselves. I saw neighbors hold each other as they moaned together in grief and fear. I watched people of every race and religion hold space with one another sharing tears, sweat, and blood no one knowing where yours ended and mine began. I watched love win in spite of EVERYTHING that hate threw at us. I saw our people. I saw our people rebuild what was broken. I saw our people work together as they sifted through the ravaged landscapes in order to find any survivors of the wreckage. I saw our people serve each other in whatever way they could.
We have forgotten 9/11. We have forgotten that all life is precious and has intrinsic value. We have forgotten that we are family, that we are a people that fights for each other, supports each other, loves each other. We haven’t needed terrorists from a foreign land to dismantle who we are and everything we stood for on 9/11. We have become the terrorists. We have become the hate. Love has not won a battle in quite some time. And this sad truth, well, this makes the pain and loss of that day that much more grotesque. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
Obviously, this is a departure from my normal posts but tomorrow is not a day like every or any other. We must remember our shared, lost identity so that we can begin again and be the people we once were- the people who cannot be divided by hatred. I hope we can be our people again. If not, we WILL lose everything- who we are, what we stand for, and what we can be. I have seen the wasteland- it will come to pass I assure you. We must somehow find a way to become again the people we were on 9/11/2001.
I will see you on Saturday. Take tomorrow and remember.