Written a little over a year ago (9/11/2011), but kept in my private collection until now...
-------------------------------------------------
September 11th was a Tuesday again this year.
Everyone remembered where they were at 8:46 AM eleven years ago when a jet
careened into the north face of the North Tower. Seventeen minutes later, while
a city was still reeling, another jet hit the Southern Tower. The aftermath of
those moments became my generation’s defining moment, the same way Kennedy’s
assassination had unified a nation almost fifty years ago. The indelible
memories from that day are still fresh, forever preserved in a collective
national memory. From the firefighters
and first responders who selflessly risked life and limb, to the countless
women who carelessly threw off their stilettos and left a trail of bloody
footprints across the Brooklyn Bridge, to the nameless man who somersaulted to
his death from one of the higher floors, and was forever preserved in a
time-lapse series, to the photographer who captured many of those harrowing
images, but got lost in the rubble, leaving only his camera and a roll of
undeveloped film behind.
It was the beginning of my senior year of high school. I was
a smart-mouthed, fresh-faced, optimistic teenager who had her whole life in
front of her. I remember first hearing about the attacks as I was dropping off
my gym clothes in my locker after gym class. One of my classmates mentioned
that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I laughed it off,
thinking it was a fat cat who didn’t know how to control his new Cessna, but as
I had a free period, I went to the library to investigate.
The first thing I noticed was an eerie quiet. There was no
one crouched in the corner talking on their new cell phone and no whispering
over homework assignments. For once, I was able to sit down at a computer
without a wait, and when I tried to load a web page, I realized why. The
internet wasn’t working.
On the screen next to mine I saw a picture of the World
Trade Center for the first time, and immediately apologized to no one in
particular for my foolish comment earlier. There was a sinking hole in our twin
iconic skyscrapers, matched only with the sinking feeling in my chest.
Somewhere, a television went on. We gathered around it, still unsure of what
had happened, but realizing that it was bigger than anything we had ever
experience before. Together, we watched the South Tower morph into a heap of
smoldering rubble.
Through all of this, the North Tower continued to burn. A
giant plume of smoke mercilessly choked Lower Manhattan. The reception on the
television continued to deteriorate, and we turned on the radio. We huddled
even closer together as it wasn’t very loud, and we heard the North Tower fall
right before the images cut out on the television. The frantic commentary from
the radio was accompanied only by static and the occasional sob as unfathomable
confusion suddenly transformed into an all too palpable fear.
The irony of having no television, no cell phone service and
no internet at the height of the dot com bubble was almost suffocating, and the
news that the subway system was being shut down indefinitely made me downright
claustrophobic. Hours later, I was finally able to reach my parents using a
borrowed cell phone. My mother picked up and, upon hearing my voice said “I
love you.” Hearing those words for the first time that day, I didn’t even
realize how much I had been longing to hear them until that point. I had always
known she did, but we as a family, didn’t say things like that. We just didn’t.
I wanted to say I loved her too. I opened my mouth, but for once in my life, I
was at a loss for words.
Mom, you probably thought I was being a surly teenager, but years
later, as a weary-eyed, pragmatic twenty-something with a past, my biggest
regret is not being able to tell you how I felt that day. All you were asking
for were four simple words, a grand total of eleven letters. I couldn’t do it,
and I still don’t know why. For that Mom, I’ll always be sorry. The amazing thing about moms however, is
their incredible capacity for forgiveness. I know you’ve long since forgiven
and forgotten, but I just want you to know I love you too. There, I said it.
