I feel a tremendous need to commemorate this day unlike many who wish to forget it. And it’s not as if I don’t understand why…I do. It was a God awful day, especially for a New Yorker.
Our country changed that morning never to be the same. It was viciously attacked for its prevalent goodness by people who we would have gladly sat with to help harness their own. But sadly, that wasn’t their choice.
I find myself downtown often still feeling the tremors. I look at the Freedom Tower that frankly, does nothing for me. A very unattractive structure built over as far as I’m concerned, a very lavish cemetery.
I felt it should have been a simple memorial to those who perished that Tuesday, not a tourist site for those who watched it on television.
For the longest time I couldn’t read about it even though my library has a vast collection of books. The first one I read was 103 Minutes that left me panting for breath…the length of time it took for both towers to fall. I then followed with ten others with such detail much of which I didn’t need to know.
What was interesting…all the stories were the same.
Watching couples jump out of windows holding hands in suits and pretty dresses. The police and firemen who went in and never came back out. Moira Kelly, the lady cop who wasn’t even on duty that day who ran down to help and was seen no more.
I knew an actor and former firefighter who also out of a sense of duty ran there and never emerged. The tales of valor consume you as you read one testimony after another in a way, grateful, you haven’t one of your own.
I was safely uptown watching the smoke blanket the atmosphere. I, along with countless others out of acute helplessness, went to give blood…blood no one would need.
I feel this day like a war wound when it rains.
And that’s the way it should be, forever and ever. 
SB
