Remembering 9/11: The Day That Changed the World

As I sit sniffling at my computer, reading countless articles and blog entries about this, the tenth anniversary of the day that will forever be known simply by its date-- “9/11” --it hits me anew how much this changed not just our world, but all of us. In that one horrific day, the last vestiges of our innocence literally went up in flames, leaving only indescribable sorrow, bitterness, and an increased awareness of evil in the remaining ashes.

★ ~ ★ ~ ★
Ten years ago saw me far removed (in body) from the shocking events which would take place that day. I was nearing the end of a seasonal job in a midwestern state, preparing to pick up stake and move again in just a few weeks’ time. I’d been to Washington D.C. on a couple occasions (once for business and once for pleasure), but hadn’t yet ventured to New York. I barely knew anyone there at the time, either--one relative, a few business acquaintances. Still, having seen numerous TV shows and movies, as well as having read so many books set in New York, I--like probably the majority of Americans--had at least a passing familiarity with it, and certainly felt a connection to it.
On the morning of 9/11, I was engaged in the most prosaic of activities--picking up a few notions (thread, buttons) in the fabric department at Wal-Mart--when I heard the news coming over the p.a. system, interrupting the piped-in Muzak. (It’s actually a wonder it even penetrated my brain; I have an uncanny ability to block out advertising, deejay patter, and most other interruptions on radio or TV.) I can still remember my head jerking up, my ears straining to make sure I’d really heard what I couldn’t possibly have just heard, that a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, even as the rest of me--my limbs, my breathing--simply stopped. I don’t think I moved for at least the next five minutes (aside from breathing, which of course resumed--albeit uncomfortably shallow and fast).
I have only the vaguest recollection of racing back to the apartment in a daze; fortunately, it was only a few miles away. I know I was paying a lot more attention to the radio than to the road and any traffic.
For the rest of that day and on into the night, we sat glued to the TV, seeing images of the smoking towers, hearing report after report of planes missing and then presumed hijacked, watching in disbelief as one--then hours later, the second--tower fell, seeing the Pentagon in flames, and listening to the plight of Flight 93. (It seems almost unspeakably sad to say that tales of the bravery of passengers on that doomed flight--passengers who managed to foil the hijackers!--was a tiny bright spot on such an impossibly awful day.) The next day was much the same--visions of smoking rubble and reports of casualties... and the shedding of so many more tears. It would be, actually, a very long time--even in the distant midwest--before things felt sort of “back to normal”... or as “normal” as things can ever be, in this scary, post-9/11 world.

★ ~ ★ ~ ★ 
This was not, of course, the first time a radical faction had chosen extreme and violent means to deliver a message of hate and intolerance. It wasn’t the first time planes had been hijacked with tragic results, nor the first time bombs had killed scores of innocent civilians in a metro area. It was, however, the largest of such heinous plans to be executed, and with such massively-devastating results. And it, perhaps more than any previous hate crime, changed the way we see our world. 
On this sad day of remembrance, I shudder to think about those who view this day as a cause for celebration of the lives, and hopes, laid to waste ten years ago... those individuals who actually believe that violence is some sort of solution. May they never again achieve such horrific results... and may the rest of us find it within ourselves to continue believing in the power of peace and promoting harmony, in the hopes of one day making our world a better, not worse, place. 

Comments

  1. MarzieSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:31 AM

    It is indeed a sad thing, to know that there are those who rejoice in such hatred... :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cat and DOG Chat With CarenSeptember 12, 2011 at 5:25 PM

    this was impeccably written and so beautiful, thank you for sharing this with us

    ReplyDelete
  3. GlamKittySeptember 12, 2011 at 7:16 PM

    And thank you for reading it!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

No ads or shilling, please. And always, always be polite.

Popular posts from this blog

Prowling the Streets in Search of Justice: A SuperHero is Born

Image
Growing up, I idolized Wonder Woman. She had it all--awesome strength and beauty, intelligence and kindness. To me, she was female perfection. Ever practical, I knew I’d never achieve that ideal (she was just fantasy, after all), but following her tireless quest to rid the world of evil and replace it with love and peace allowed me to envision a place and time in which women enjoyed real power and respect (and could fix problems without a lot of senseless bloodshed). It's never all about thrilling feats of derring-do, of course.  There’s a bit of melancholy attached to any superhero story too-- sometimes a sense of loss, and always feelings of loneliness. Nothing comes without a price.  Raymond Benson explores what it would be like to become an all-too-human superhero in his new book, The Black Stiletto . ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ Martin Talbot is a just a regular Joe. Ordinary-looking, middle-aged, and divorced (with shared custody of an only daughter), he’s not the sort to inspire...
Read more

Werewolves in London? Try Bloodsuckers Down Under (Aussie urban fantasy/thriller REVIEW)

Image
Aside from a few dozen or so songs--the unremittingly-cheery sort of dreck I can only charitably term “uplifting”--there seems to be something of a universal consensus that life can be pretty awful. Sound overly harsh? Let’s look to some experts then, shall we? Consider that the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths is that “life means suffering”. Think back to John Hobbes, who concluded in his 1651 book Leviathan that life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. “ Of course, if you prefer your proof to be of the less-erudite variety, there’s always that late-20th-century classic, “Life sucks, and then you die”. (Lacks a bit in the eloquence department, but it gets the same point across, in inimical Bill-&-Ted fashion.) With such depressing thoughts bearing down on us like so many dark, angry stormclouds--and the fact that most of us have just seen too much bad to fall for the false promises in those sappy songs--it's no wonder a lot of people look for ways to escape t...
Read more

A Nightmare Without End: Abduction & the Long Road Back

Image
Danger takes many forms. Most of us--once we’ve become rather uncomfortably aware of our own mortality--make an effort to take at least a few precautions to ward ourselves from some of the dangers we face.  At a bare minimum, we look both ways before crossing the street. We inoculate ourselves against deadly diseases. We bolt our doors and lock our windows to all the scary things (and bad people) that go bump in the night. We fasten our seat belts before setting out on the roadways in our little hunks of metal (although statistics show that a lot more of us could stand to be doing that ). Taking such measures is empowering; we’re proactively doing something to safeguard ourselves. So many other things, of course, are completely outside the realm of our control. We’re unable to prevent cancers or illnesses that we’re genetically predisposed to getting. We’re at the whims of Mother Nature when it comes to floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and such. We can’t predict if a random stran...
Read more