Just go to Google Images and enter “9/11”, and you’ll find countless images I could have used for this post. This is the one I chose, not because I’m tired and lazy from the nasty sinus infection that has had me at home for the last 4 days, and this was the first image that appeared in the search results, and I didn’t feel like searching through thousands of images for the perfect one…well, not entirely because of that anyway.
I chose this image because it’s ugly. It shows the hideous nature of what that horrid day, nine years ago, means for us. I didn’t want the
“Tribute in Light” memorial images. I didn’t want the pretty red, white, and blue ribbon, adorned with the candles and the towers as symbols for the number 11. None of that. Don’t get me wrong. Those images are touching, and some quite clever. I like them just fine. But I wanted the ugliness, the nastiness. It may seem like self-punishment, like I’m sure we all felt in the days, weeks, even months after it happened, when we couldn’t tear ourselves away from
the footage, regardless of how many times we had seen it. I just don’t want to forget.
Two years ago¹, I voiced my concern that as the years go by, we will all become more and more apathetic.
Earlier this week, I mentioned how I just felt weird about today, even before it approached. Earlier today, I actually said, “I hate today”, and this is why…
September 11 fell on a Saturday in 2004, and I recall feeling the same way then. I feel like Saturday doesn’t give this day what it deserves. I feel like it’s so easy for everyone to go about their normal “Saturday” lives and forget, during the course of the day. Yes, I’ve seen countless “tributes” on Facebook and Twitter throughout the day, but it just feels different. Today got its “moment in the sun” yesterday…and I guess that’s the part I don’t like. World News did a piece on the children who were born that year, shortly after their fathers were killed. I saw/heard many other media outlets pay tribute as well. But that was all on September 10. I just feel some type of way about that.²
Am I the only one?
¹ That nine-year-old girl I mentioned in that post two years ago is doing remarkably well now!! It has been an extremely long road to recovery, and while it’s not quite over, it warms my heart every single time I see her walking the hallways (even when she was doing so in a wheelchair)! She’s such a little miracle!
² You can Google that (“I feel some type of way”). I’m not sure when or how that phrase became popular.
