There is something about 9/11 that is still unresolved in me. Every time this is a news story, a newspaper article, lyrics put to still photos…I just start bawling. Not like a cute-Hallmark-card-commercial cry, like an emotional, gut-wrenching blubbering cry. I knew of a few people who knew a few people, but no one personally. And I have no idea why this happens.
I, like every other American, know exactly where I was, what I was doing, how I was feeling. And I guess the feeling is still unresolved in me. I remember feeling homesick for the first time in a long time, and all I wanted to do was hug my family. I remember people crying on the sidewalk for no apparent reason, except that you knew what the reason was, and even though they were strangers, you went and hugged them anyway.
And then I remember the next 9 years, I blatantly tried to ignore it every anniversary, because I would turn into a blubbering idiot any time I watched a news report, or saw a newspaper article with the pictures of the destruction. It was horrible, it was a feeling of terror that I hope I never feel again. It made me think about my freedom, it made me contemplate my existence and place in the world, and it made me so grateful for the armed forces, people in my family I had taken for granted who were now being sent overseas to fight for the very freedom I thought was “a given” as an American.
I haven’t been back to NYC since 1996, but watching the coverage of the 10th anniversary of the attacks makes me feel humble. Makes me feel proud. Makes me feel a whole range of emotions that I would like to deny, but know I cannot. Paul Simon just did the song, “Sound of Silence” at the very time the north tower was hit. And it reminds us all, the power of unity against evil, the power of heroes, the power of America.
Never forget. Always grateful.
