So today (well in the USA at least) is the 5th anniversary of 9/11. I've been reading article after article about this tonight and I've read numerous blogs. I've been trying to decide if I should comment and if so what to say. None of the above has really helped, sadly.
But I have decided to say something and I'm afraid it will come out as I type, I have no real structure in my mind.
It's obvious that the memory is still fairly raw in America, I think less so here in Australia, but that's to be expected. I didn't feel very emotional about it before I started reading tonight. I do somewhat now though.
I went to "ground zero" 10 months after the day. The hole in the ground was empty by then, the dust and rubble was gone, New York was functioning, yet it was still a pretty emotional moment. The silence as you approached the viewing area reminded me of entering a church. I'm not a religious person, it wasn't a religious thing, it was just that it was like the way people go silent as they enter their gods house. I had been shaken by the pictures I saw on TV and like anyone else it had an effect on me. So I paid my respects at the site, took 3 guilt ridden pictures - it didn't feel right to snap away there - and moved on. I laid it all to rest there on that day. It wasn't a huge burden but one I was now free of. Yet it still manages to stir something 5 years later.
But I think that anything stirred within me tonight has a hell of a lot more layers to it than merely the WTC Towers and their destruction. There's the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people since, Afghanistan and Iraq, both soldiers and civilians, people on both sides of the conflict and those caught in between. And I think it's the thought of what is still to come that bothers me so much, because the world changed drastically on that day. It will never be the same and I find that the saddest thing of all.
So on this day I wont be remembering just the victims in New York, I'll think of all the other victims around the world as well. Those who have died as a result and those who still live, because we're all victims of it, we were then and we so very much are now.
Photo Credit: Flynn Sloyan
Comments
I live in Oklahoma City. After the bombing here I have had trouble even comprehending how bad it was in NYC....
While I think it's appropriate to honor the people who have died in these bombings, I am saddened and ashamed sometimes of my country's inability to recognize the collateral damage or even the fact that we are far from unique in having lost people to war. That there are countries where mothers put their children to bed to the sounds of bombs rather than lullabys.
Ooops....sorry. I didn't mean to use your blog as a place to rant. You don't have to post this comment if you'd rather not....but I'm going to send it regardless. :-)