Historic global events have a certain tendency to warp time. After all, it still feels like yesterday that terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center towers and forever altered our understanding of terrorism.
Yet it's been 14 years since that terrible, unspeakable, indelible day, and we continue to live with the fallout. Airports with more security than prisons, ISIS, and waves of migrants seeking a better life all have their roots in 9/11.
I remember my first thought as I watched the towers fall, surrounded by shellshocked co-workers in our downtown office, was to call my then-6-year-old son's school to make sure that they were secure. I thought of our daughter, a day before her fourth birthday, and our youngest, who at 13 months-old would grow up in the shadows of an indescribable event that he did not witness first-hand.
And I remember thinking how sad it was that so many chose to be fuelled by blind hatred, that they allowed their destiny to be shaped by an irrational rage against people they had never met, and would never take the time to understand.
What is it about humanity that fills so many of us with this much anger? Fourteen years later, I'm in no better a position than I was to answer this question than I was on that awful, awful day. Somehow, we've got to do better.
Related:
Yet it's been 14 years since that terrible, unspeakable, indelible day, and we continue to live with the fallout. Airports with more security than prisons, ISIS, and waves of migrants seeking a better life all have their roots in 9/11.
I remember my first thought as I watched the towers fall, surrounded by shellshocked co-workers in our downtown office, was to call my then-6-year-old son's school to make sure that they were secure. I thought of our daughter, a day before her fourth birthday, and our youngest, who at 13 months-old would grow up in the shadows of an indescribable event that he did not witness first-hand.
And I remember thinking how sad it was that so many chose to be fuelled by blind hatred, that they allowed their destiny to be shaped by an irrational rage against people they had never met, and would never take the time to understand.
What is it about humanity that fills so many of us with this much anger? Fourteen years later, I'm in no better a position than I was to answer this question than I was on that awful, awful day. Somehow, we've got to do better.
Related:
Three years later
9/11 + 5
9/11: Looking back. Looking inward. (2011)
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2 comments:
You are spot on with this... I remember it was a year of firsts for me...The first year to experience something so horrible as this... A first for being a widow, a first for also sharing that day w/the fact it was my wedding anniversary... a first for dealing w/lawyers and the system they put us through... a first for learning a lot about myself, and how life was forever going to be different.
Unfortunately over 100,000 people who had nothing to d with this also lost their lives as they sat in their homes at a later time.
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