I don't want to detract from the importance of today by adding unnecessary commentary to what is already one of the largest media-hyped days in recent history. There are so many words out there, written and spoken, about 9/11, a day so awful that words cannot convey the horrors of it. Everything you could possibly think or say about what happened seems superfluous. I vowed to avoid televison completely today, and paid my respects to the victims in my own way.
Less than a week after September 11, 2001, my friend Beth and I set off for the West Side Highway in a feeble attempt to help the tremendous rescue efforts undertaken by New York City firefighters, police, power and phone company personnel, truck drivers, EMTs, and steelworkers. At that point, the biggest contribution we could make was to thank these people for their tireless dedication to what was an incrediblly daunting and at that point seemingly insurmountable task. As we clapped, cheered, and held signs thanking the rescue and recovery workers, it felt like we were doing so little. They appreciated it though, and several people pulled their vehicles over to take pictures of us, and with tears in their eyes, they thanked us, essentially, for thanking them. It was then that I realized how much everyone wanted to help, but how little any of us, even those of us who were moving steel and concrete and phone lines, felt they were doing. The thanks we gave one another was encouraging, but still didn’t seem to be enough, when there were so many missing people yet to be found.
This morning, Beth and I returned to the West Side Highway, to the place where only a year ago we viewed the faces of the exhausted and downtrodden workers who were trying so hard to help. Today we sat quietly on a bench, away from the ceremony at the World Trade site, about 20 blocks north on Vestry Street. Yards from the Hudson River, we each took an earpiece from Beth's headphones and listened to the memorial on the radio. The remembrance ceremony was simple, starting with Guiliani and moving through a number of speakers, some politicians, others perhaps family members of the victims. Each contributor read a series of names, one by one, while Beth and I looked at each corresponding photograph in today's New York Times. We looked at the face of each man, woman, and child, from all races and creeds, and saw firsthand that the WTC attack was not just on America, but the many peoples of the world -– 91 countries in total.
The victims deserved their respect, their time in my mind, for what made them any different from me, other than they worked 50 blocks south of me on that fated morning? With each name taking no more than 4 seconds to utter, it took two and a half hours to get through the 3,000 or so names of victims of the greatest tragedy our city, and our country, has seen in recent time. Listening to each name, thinking about each one representing a life - somebody's mother, brother, girlfriend, husband, colleague, friend, neighbor - made me realize the personal devastation that this day last year held for so many.
After the last name was read, I felt so empty inside that I wasn't quite sure what to do. Even now, I am going through the motions of typing, making phone calls, as if I am only partially here. When I think of all of the people who lost a mother, brother, girlfriend, husband... my grief seems so small and inconsequential.
New York is bouncing back from this devastating event, as only the best of the best cities can. And although life has in many ways returned to normal, one year after this horrific nightmare, it is forever changed, as are all of us who call this place home.
