In the new normal, September 11th is the new Labor Day. By that I mean that the autumn season doesn’t really begin until we have mourned our losses from 9/11.
Falling on a Sunday, this year’s anniversary did feel like a national day of remembrance. Even though it looked like a typical fall Sunday and people did typical Sunday things – it wasn’t really a typical day at all. At Ground Zero, at houses of worship, homes, firehouses, cemeteries, gardens, and
streets throughout the city, people commemorated the loss of the
nearly 3000 people who died on September 11. Bells tolled at the exact times the
planes hit, as well as the times the south and north towers fell.
This year, I didn’t take part in any 9/11 memorial activities. In the past I have gone to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to meditate on the grass or to Old First Church to sit and listen to the church bells ring. Last year I attended a dinner at Al Di La given by a friend whose husband died on that day. She wanted to thank all her friends for their support and love.
Yesterday, I was aware of it being September 11th from the moment I woke up. Listening to the names being read at Ground Zero was a stark reminder of that Tuesday’s tragedy. And this year the siblings read the names, which brought its own stirring poignancy.
I don’t think the beginning of September will ever mean anything other than 9/11 and the dispair we felt on that day. And September 12th will always bring relief because on that day in 2001 we slowly began to put back the pieces. Through our tears, our panic, and our bewilderment, we began the protracted healing process that continues to this day.
9/11 will always be the day we took the hit. But on the day after, we begin to begin again and celebrate the goodness that persists despite the evil we have seen.
OST
A different Anonymous:
I was curious as to whether there were any facts supporting your assertion that “Without intent there can be no tragedy”, so I took your invitation to look it up. Here is how Webster’s defines “tragedy”:
Main Entry: trag
Anonymous;
Actually the meaning of tragedy is just the opposite. Without intent there can be no tragedy. Dying because someone has reduced you to a symbol and murdered you or because you are heroically trying to save others is a tragedy. Dieing in a natural disaster is not. Look it up. For a lawyer you are kind of sloppy with language, and telling others how they should feel and act about their individual loss is at the very least presumptuous. You should also consider that you have been manipulated by the terrorists into acting exactly the way that benefits them the most.
Your comment states: “Listening to the names being read at Ground Zero was a stark reminder of that Tuesday’s tragedy.”
Respectfully, I must point out that “tragedy” is not the right word. “Tragedy” implies lack of intent. The losses inflicted by Katrina were a tragedy. What took place on 9/11 was a vicious, amoral mass murder.
Your comment states: “At Ground Zero, at houses of worship, homes, firehouses, cemeteries, gardens, and streets throughout the city, people commemorated the loss of the nearly 3000 people who died on September 11.”
Those 3000 people were MURDERED. There was no earthquake, tornado, hurricane, etc that caused “the loss” of those who “died.” Rather, what happened is that a primitive, bloodthirsty, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-semitic, anti-intellectual, anti-American, anti-European, anti-everything- except-fundamentalist-Islam death cult spawned, trained, funded and equipped 19 assassins who woke up that day and set off to kill as many innocents as they could.
That’s why 3000 mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands and wives went off to work that day and didn’t come back. That’s why so many of those amazingly brave firemen went up into those towers and didn’t come out. That’s why families were destroyed.
If they’d had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it, and there would have been 3 million dead instead of 3000. That risk is still very much with us.
I believe the memory of those taken from us on that terrible day is most respected by telling the truth about how and why they were killed. Gauzy, value-neutral euphemisms obscure the facts and promote moral equivalence at the expense of truth. Hopefully, truth-telling will also help us remember and take seriously the very real dangers that we face.