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Remembering Sept. 11, 2001 - September 11, 2006
I suppose every columnist worth his or her space in the newspaper will be writing reflections on the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001. Or maybe you are tired of it by now. For the record, I did not write about September 11 at the time, or any of the anniversaries since, because it seemed like anything I had to say had already been said or seemed so puny to offer up against such a horrible event.
Perhaps it still is, but I recorded some reflections that day and in the days following that I saved. I know I would have forgotten some of these raw emotions if I had not jotted them down, and perhaps they'll trigger for you some thoughts that will be learning tools. I'm not going to be proscriptive or give answers here, but rather describe and reflect.
In retrospect, the pictures and sounds of that day took a while to sink in, in terms of impact. We know the outcome now, but when, for instance, the webmaster at the office first called me over to look at the news he was discovering on the Internet, saying a plane had just hit the World Trade Center, I remember experiencing unbelief and thinking, "Is this a bad joke?"
I joined others in our office watching TV in our meeting room and remember someone trying to figure out why whoever had done it had chosen September 11. What did it all mean? The scenes seemed like a bad movie.
When I went back to my desk after trying to come to grips with the unfolding news, I called my two older daughters: one, a college junior three hours away, and the other a new freshman at the university in our own town. We exchanged greetings of shock, sadness and fear. I usually take notes during a phone conversation, and I still have on my computer a post-it note with cryptic scribblings from our conversation; the most telling was her saying, "I'm scared."
I left work a little early so that I could pick up my high school sophomore (something I didn't usually do, but like everyone else that day I felt an enormous need to touch, see or talk to everyone in my immediate family as soon as possible, and didn't want her to have to ride the bus for an hour.)
On my way to school I stopped at the grocery store. It was a mundane, everyday task, but somehow even the store was quiet. Planes overhead had also stopped by that time, creating an eerie emptiness in the sky. Somber faces were everywhere. I felt numb. I personally couldn't cry, at that point, but felt on the edge of tears.
As I purchased milk and some scouring pads, I thought about how I could now understand how the ordinary needs of daily life carry one forward in the midst of terrible tragedy, war or disaster. Now I understood, like never before, how people went on after Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima, if they were lucky enough to still be alive; or now, how daily life continues in Iraq or Lebanon.
The next day, I awoke with the dreadful feeling of knowing our lives had changed forever, yet not knowing the full impact. I kneeled by my bed and cried deep sobs for the many thousands who had surely died, at that point an unknown number and predicted to be much higher than it turned out to be. Small thing to be thankful for. I felt better after that cry, as though I had somehow grieved and connected with those whose worlds had changed 180 degrees rather than just been touched. Had it all been a bad dream?
"Bombs always hit other places. Not here," I wrote. Condolences are sent to other countries. Seldom had the U.S. had to accept condolences from other countries. Accepting condolences implies weakness, imperfection, that you experienced a problem. Tanzania. Liberia. A church leader, Mauricio Chenlo then of Buenos Aires, wrote in the days following, "After Pearl Harbor came Hiroshima. What is going to be the reaction after such a humiliating act against the States? I pray for a 'lesser kind of retaliation.'"
Pundits said that "the worst had happened" and I thought, well, it was terrible, but, unfortunately, it is not the worst thing that could happen. Now we know first hand that the impossible, the improbable, the can't-happen-here things we push out of our minds- can and do happen here.
But we cope. We pick up and move on. We find small ways to start hoping again. The days following September 11 were some of the most emotional I ever remember. Unfortunately the aftermath is still being played out, on foreign soil and here in North America. And I shed some more tears.
Contributed by Melodie Davis: MelodieD@MennoMedia.org Melodie is the author of eight books and writes a syndicated newspaper column, Another Way
I suppose every columnist worth his or her space in the newspaper will be writing reflections on the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001. Or maybe you are tired of it by now. For the record, I did not write about September 11 at the time, or any of the anniversaries since, because it seemed like anything I had to say had already been said or seemed so puny to offer up against such a horrible event.
Perhaps it still is, but I recorded some reflections that day and in the days following that I saved. I know I would have forgotten some of these raw emotions if I had not jotted them down, and perhaps they'll trigger for you some thoughts that will be learning tools. I'm not going to be proscriptive or give answers here, but rather describe and reflect.
In retrospect, the pictures and sounds of that day took a while to sink in, in terms of impact. We know the outcome now, but when, for instance, the webmaster at the office first called me over to look at the news he was discovering on the Internet, saying a plane had just hit the World Trade Center, I remember experiencing unbelief and thinking, "Is this a bad joke?"
I joined others in our office watching TV in our meeting room and remember someone trying to figure out why whoever had done it had chosen September 11. What did it all mean? The scenes seemed like a bad movie.
When I went back to my desk after trying to come to grips with the unfolding news, I called my two older daughters: one, a college junior three hours away, and the other a new freshman at the university in our own town. We exchanged greetings of shock, sadness and fear. I usually take notes during a phone conversation, and I still have on my computer a post-it note with cryptic scribblings from our conversation; the most telling was her saying, "I'm scared."
I left work a little early so that I could pick up my high school sophomore (something I didn't usually do, but like everyone else that day I felt an enormous need to touch, see or talk to everyone in my immediate family as soon as possible, and didn't want her to have to ride the bus for an hour.)
On my way to school I stopped at the grocery store. It was a mundane, everyday task, but somehow even the store was quiet. Planes overhead had also stopped by that time, creating an eerie emptiness in the sky. Somber faces were everywhere. I felt numb. I personally couldn't cry, at that point, but felt on the edge of tears.
As I purchased milk and some scouring pads, I thought about how I could now understand how the ordinary needs of daily life carry one forward in the midst of terrible tragedy, war or disaster. Now I understood, like never before, how people went on after Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima, if they were lucky enough to still be alive; or now, how daily life continues in Iraq or Lebanon.
The next day, I awoke with the dreadful feeling of knowing our lives had changed forever, yet not knowing the full impact. I kneeled by my bed and cried deep sobs for the many thousands who had surely died, at that point an unknown number and predicted to be much higher than it turned out to be. Small thing to be thankful for. I felt better after that cry, as though I had somehow grieved and connected with those whose worlds had changed 180 degrees rather than just been touched. Had it all been a bad dream?
"Bombs always hit other places. Not here," I wrote. Condolences are sent to other countries. Seldom had the U.S. had to accept condolences from other countries. Accepting condolences implies weakness, imperfection, that you experienced a problem. Tanzania. Liberia. A church leader, Mauricio Chenlo then of Buenos Aires, wrote in the days following, "After Pearl Harbor came Hiroshima. What is going to be the reaction after such a humiliating act against the States? I pray for a 'lesser kind of retaliation.'"
Pundits said that "the worst had happened" and I thought, well, it was terrible, but, unfortunately, it is not the worst thing that could happen. Now we know first hand that the impossible, the improbable, the can't-happen-here things we push out of our minds- can and do happen here.
But we cope. We pick up and move on. We find small ways to start hoping again. The days following September 11 were some of the most emotional I ever remember. Unfortunately the aftermath is still being played out, on foreign soil and here in North America. And I shed some more tears.
Contributed by Melodie Davis: MelodieD@MennoMedia.org Melodie is the author of eight books and writes a syndicated newspaper column, Another Way
