I almost missed the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001. I was on a soul/sole vacation driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway between Shenandoah and Smokey Mountain National Parks. I refused to turn on the radio during this trip, preferring calm music or specially selected books on tape, as I needed to decompress after a trying contract aboard ship. Purely coincidence, I was taking my second, and last, peak at email in a public library when one of the librarians squawked in a hushed shrill to a colleague about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. What fantastical nonsense, I thought. But her tone made me at least try to log on to one of the news services. The systems were overloaded with people looking for information, so I got none but figured there might be something to her story. Yet, still I did not turn on my car radio.
Oh, I'd catch snippets here and there, eventually. Especially with the two tourists from Germany (a magnet for malcontents looking to do harm) whom I kept bumping into on the road. We would watch the video and reports on TV in hotel lobbies (cabins don't have those luxuries) but it soon became apparent that no additional information was available and a hypnotic drone of doom was repeating itself. It was imperative that I turn away from unnecessary disturbance. When I returned to "real life" I discovered that everyone had been constantly soaking in this toxic marinade. Not just affected by the terrible news- as it indeed was- but paralyzed by the constant consumption if its images.
Just a couple of weeks after these events, my mother, her sister and I went on a cruise that would take us to Russia, Japan, South Korea and China. The world knew about the tragedy and despite language barriers let us know they shared our pain.
Ten Years Later
An anniversary of sorts, this is, world wide. Everyone is doing a 'where we were, what we thought' kind of reflection of the events. The newspaper here in Perth ran a whole series of stories by reporters there on the day, Muslims who can't believe this was done in the name of Islam, transplanted New Yorkers asked to relive the nightmare and even a story about five kids born on 9-11-2001 who have known no other world. This last story makes me smile. Or rather, the photo of the five kids makes me smile. Other than their shared birthdate, there is no reason for these randomly picked kids to be anything at all alike. And they aren't. Five different personalities pop right off the page. Who is listening to their mothers talking about an odd mix of joy and apprehension the day their babies were born?
Truthfully, I am glad to hear survivors and those directly affected by the terrorist attacks start to talk about moving on to the final stage of grieving: acceptance & recovery. It would sound heartless coming from anyone else. But I don't see a purpose in keeping them or ourselves as permanent victims. Think of Martin Luther King Jr's widow, Coretta Scott King, a woman who never had 'permission' to be anything but a professional widow. A rather sad and stilted way to spend the next 40 years of one's life.
