Ten years ago today, I was at work, on an otherwise normal Tuesday morning when the world stopped. I heard a bit of a news story about a plane flying into the World Trade Center in New York. After turning first to CNN's website, and finding it (and other news sites) overwhelmed with traffic, I called my mother, who was at home, to ask her to turn on the news and tell me what was going on. She confirmed that yes, at least one plane had been flown into the World Trade Center and more news was coming in.
It was not the first time I had woken my mother with world stopping news. I had done the same in 1986, when my younger brother and I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger explode moments after liftoff. I woke her up with similar news one Saturday morning in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia was lost upon re-entry. It has become a family legend that you should not answer the phone when I call in the mornings.
Having shaken my mother's world, I turned back to mine. I had work to get done and work that would keep me from checking the Internet for updates, and could thankfully, keep me away from television and the live, never-ceasing coverage of the attacks.
I also had a voice-mail that kept my world grounded. I nearly wore out the replay button on my voicemail listening over and over to my dearest thanking me for a silly birthday present I had sent him from London. I had returned to the US on September 7, after a trip to Ireland and London. While I was there, I found a silly little teddy bear at Harrods and mailed it to him as his gift. I still have a sound file of that voicemail.
I have been lucky enough to have been able to avoid the now-iconic footage of the planes flying into the World Trade Center, and the subsequent collapse. I have seen still photos, but never the video footage. I do not want to. Once you see that footage, you can never un-see it. And I do not need to see it to know what happened.
As the ten-year remembrance (I hesitate to call it an anniversary) of the attacks on the US have come, every network has retrospectives -- one of them offers a minute-by-minute oral history from those that were there. The problem is, WE WERE ALL THERE! Anyone over 20 years old today was there. We do not need retrospectives. We do not need help remembering what happened, or even where we were when the world stopped. Some of us do not want to remember. Some of us were scarred enough that and the following days. The legacy of the event is being lived out daily -- from building IDs and security checks at banks to the need to strip nearly naked at airports. It has touched every facet of our daily lives. We cannot forget it if we wanted. The world is now measured in terms of before 9/11 and after 9/11. The legacy is everywhere and ever-present. We cannot forget it.
My acknowledgement of the day will not be at television networks' dictate. I did not spend that day ten years ago glued to the television nor will I spend my Sunday there. I will not be watching any of the retrospectives. I do not need to hear minute-by-minute reports. I have lived ten years without seeing the video footage, I do not intend to change that. That is not to say that I will not pause for a moment of prayerful silence today. I will pause to remember not only those lost at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but also those lost in a field in Pennsylvania. I will also pause for a moment in thankful memory of those in the Canadian cities who opened their homes and arms to the passengers on the US-bound diverted flights when the airspace was closed, the first responders and clean-up crews who had to sort through the wreckage of all three locations, those men and women of the military who have sacrificed their lives in the fight against terrorism, and everyone the world over who has had to make sense of and muddle through the world since then.
May the Lord Have Mercy on Us All.
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