In Memoriam, 9/11

Twelve years. I don’t know if it feels like yesterday or decades ago. That day remains vivid in my mind, however. It was a clear blue Tuesday morning. What I have a hard time remembering was September 10, 2001. I remember going down to court the week before. The courthouse was not far from the World Trade Center. Coming out of the subway the Towers were to my left in the distance, dominating the skyline. I go to that same subway station and I have a hard time remembering how the towers looked from that view, especially with the gleaming One World Trade rising in their place. It puzzles me. Pre-9/11 seems like a dream. Maybe that’s why I can’t tell if it feels like yesterday or in the distant past. There seems to be no prologue. Just the post-9/11 world that I’ve become accustomed.

I can look back on my life of the last twelve years and so much has changed. I got married, bought a house, we have a son and a daughter. Life has endured, as America has endured despite what had happened. That was probably the hardest thing to foresee on 9/11. How life would go on.

Nearly three thousand people were murdered that day and their loved ones have had to find a way to live on, and they have. Then there are the 9/11 first responders who have died from cancer and other illnesses, or are sick now, brought on by the toxic fumes from the ruins. There are countless articles and exposés on them out now to commemorate the anniversary. To the survivors, this past decade has been an elegy.