Eleven years ago....
How can it be hard to believe that 11 years have passed since that Tuesday morning and yet feel like it just happened ???
There is not a lot to say about 9/11 that has not been said - thought - felt...but especially for those of us who were here in NYC, in Manhattan that day is a fresh wound. It starts to scab but it does not quite heal - it starts to scab but not ready to be just a scar.
I look at what we lost that day -- our friends, a part of our city, people we did not know - and I think of who we in New York were that day - brave, quiet, helpful, kind, a unit of different religions, races, colors...we did not care who you were married to, or if you were married, we did not care if you were a Democrat or a Republican -- that day we were all Americans - quietly hanging flags and honoring the country that housed us by choice or by birth. We were survivors and we were everything those without souls who brought this terror to us hated...we were different and we were one.
I am sad when I do not see that in our country- it should not take an act as heinous as that to remind us all that inside of us in the United States is something that is unlike any other part of the world. It should not be that we New Yorkers - gritty, tough, often described as rude (I cannot disagree with this more - rushed yes rude only at red lights) - are forgotten as the model of the world as it could be. Yes as it could be - packed together, fighting for every penny we have, spending it to live near this amazing metropolis of people like us and so different from us - tough and amazing in times of need. It should not be that it has taken 11 years to finally remember the heroes of that day with Federal funds for the illness they got as a result of their heroism... whether they had been told the truth at the time about the dangers or deceived as they were - they would have gone there all the same. That is who they are, were, that is who we should honor with our gratitude and with all the healthcare they need - not to give money to protect places that unleashed their terrible sons upon us.
It has been 11 years and it feels like a long time ago that happened just last week. I get weepy - I get scared - and most of all I wish I did not have to teach my sons that there was a world before 9/11 - that 9/11 was just a date to them. I also get hopeful that we may use 9/11 to stop bickering, to be grateful for the millionaires, for the middle class, for the poor - for all of us who make us America. I lost a lot on that day - but I did not give the terrorists anything of me. I lost a lot in that moment but I took from the terrorists the terror of being proud of being everything that frightens their narrow little worlds. We lost a lot that day a- what will we do as a nation to gain something from it????
There is not a lot to say about 9/11 that has not been said - thought - felt...but especially for those of us who were here in NYC, in Manhattan that day is a fresh wound. It starts to scab but it does not quite heal - it starts to scab but not ready to be just a scar.
I look at what we lost that day -- our friends, a part of our city, people we did not know - and I think of who we in New York were that day - brave, quiet, helpful, kind, a unit of different religions, races, colors...we did not care who you were married to, or if you were married, we did not care if you were a Democrat or a Republican -- that day we were all Americans - quietly hanging flags and honoring the country that housed us by choice or by birth. We were survivors and we were everything those without souls who brought this terror to us hated...we were different and we were one.
I am sad when I do not see that in our country- it should not take an act as heinous as that to remind us all that inside of us in the United States is something that is unlike any other part of the world. It should not be that we New Yorkers - gritty, tough, often described as rude (I cannot disagree with this more - rushed yes rude only at red lights) - are forgotten as the model of the world as it could be. Yes as it could be - packed together, fighting for every penny we have, spending it to live near this amazing metropolis of people like us and so different from us - tough and amazing in times of need. It should not be that it has taken 11 years to finally remember the heroes of that day with Federal funds for the illness they got as a result of their heroism... whether they had been told the truth at the time about the dangers or deceived as they were - they would have gone there all the same. That is who they are, were, that is who we should honor with our gratitude and with all the healthcare they need - not to give money to protect places that unleashed their terrible sons upon us.
It has been 11 years and it feels like a long time ago that happened just last week. I get weepy - I get scared - and most of all I wish I did not have to teach my sons that there was a world before 9/11 - that 9/11 was just a date to them. I also get hopeful that we may use 9/11 to stop bickering, to be grateful for the millionaires, for the middle class, for the poor - for all of us who make us America. I lost a lot on that day - but I did not give the terrorists anything of me. I lost a lot in that moment but I took from the terrorists the terror of being proud of being everything that frightens their narrow little worlds. We lost a lot that day a- what will we do as a nation to gain something from it????
Waking up this morning was hard, I didn't want to face today, reading your blog helped so much, thank you!!
ReplyDeleteI was not in the US when this happened, but i remeber the horror i saw on TV, i remeber crying cos i was horrified and terrorized. I could not belive that human beings could do this to other human beings. 9/11 changed the world as we knew it, for as long as i live i wont forget that day.
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