Thirteen Years Ago Today

Four planes were hijacked and commandeered by terrorists and made to crash into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.  It was an event that shocked the world.  Certainly, it was horrific for me.

And to this day, I just cannot look at the videos of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center.  I can't even imagine what the families of those who died go through every time there's coverage of the catastrophe that killed thousands of people-and their loved ones.

On that day, I was sitting in my office when I received the first call about what had happened.  When the first plane crashed.  Then the second plane.  And it got worse.  My co-workers and I frantically searched for coverage of the disaster on websites.  And stared, shell-shocked, at what we saw.

I worked at a university here in Rhode Island, and school had just started.  Many students were from New York and New Jersey and had relatives who worked in Manhattan at the WTC and nearby buildings.  I can't imagine what they endured.  Classes were canceled.  The school held a memorial service outside Manning Chapel at noon.  The grounds were crowded with so many people, it seemed as if everyone on campus had made it their priority to be there.  

My brother worked a few miles from the Pentagon.  He felt the impact of the crash, saw the smoke rising.  His wife was in Los Angeles for a conference.  She wasn't able to come home for days because either flights were cancelled or so overbooked that there were no seats available.  

Someone I know had a daughter who worked in the second tower.  When the first plane hit, something told her that she needed to get out of the building.  Her bosses told her, "If you leave you're fired."  She left, not caring about the job she'd worked so hard for.  She somehow got out of the building before the second plane hit it.  None of her co-workers survived.

That was a day when everything changed.

Two months later, friends and I went to New York City for Christmas shopping.  While we wandered around Fifth Avenue and elsewhere we came upon a fire house that had a big placard attached to the building with the names of the first responders they had lost.  I don't know how many people were normally assigned to the fire house - but there were 21 names on that sign.  As we'd ridden the bus into the city, I avoided looking in the direction of where the Towers normally had stood, while others craned their necks.  I couldn't.

I never did any art about what had happened.  Maybe I will.  Or not.  It doesn't matter really.

What matters is that people everywhere remember what happened, and do their best to work for peace and reject violence.  On all sides.  Because violence solves nothing.  It just creates more violence.  I know it sounds simplistic.  But it's worth a try.

Anything's better than what we've got right now.

Wall of Hope, with tiles by Rhode Island children,
Waterplace Park, Providence

later,
lin