One of the first things I ever did for the Lower Manhattan construction website for which I write was cover the first anniversary of 9/11.
I worked among five other communications professionals, but I was the only one who went downtown for that heavy day. Security was tight, but I had a special entry in place through our City Hall connections. After all, the website was created especially for and about all-things-rebuilding.
I remember meeting a married couple down in “the pit” (as we affectionately called our place of business). The woman told me about her brother, a firefighter who perished 365 days prior and on the same ground where we stood.
I humbly took the couple’s photo, her facing me, her husband with his back to me to show the t-shirt they had made in their brother’s honor. They were sad, but seemed to have a grip on it. They appreciated the commemoration, but were not using it as a reason to tear open the wound again and re-feel the incomparable loss of the actual day. Many commemoration participants were like that. There were tears, but it was a kind of closure.
Then the same thing happened the next year. Another ceremony to mark the day, with nearly 3,000 names being read, this year by parents of the victims (in Sept. 2002, it was their children reading their names).
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| The north Memorial pool with the Freedom Tower |
I wept. I relived 9/11/01. I couldn’t believe that I was sitting there hearing yet again about all the pain caused by terrorism, and propaganda about our precious freedom. Yes, propaganda – because how free are we if we limit some people’s rights while exalting others’? (Gays and lesbians, immigrants, blue-collar workers, pot smokers – yes, our freedom is limited.)
Is reliving the horrors and emotional assault on each of us really what they meant by “rebirth”? Because to me it’s more like re-hashing.
Now we are here in the future. This weekend will bring the 10th anniversary of the attacks, of hijackings and violence, confusion and pain, the start of lifelong illnesses for victims and emergency responders – and it will also mark the 10th funeral for 2,977 people (plus 19 hijackers) who died that day, or because of that day. By the way, that’s only counting the direct deaths, not those whose 9/11-related deaths perhaps went un-memorialized.
I have many questions now, 10 years later:
Is the City of New York hosting these commemoration ceremonies because they’re afraid to forget what happened that day, and without a ceremony that is sure to happen?
Why do victims’ family members want to relive that pain every September?
Is fear driving this commemoration event, as in, fear of what people will think if NYC doesn’t put on a big show?
What are the benefits of having an annual funeral?
Are any family members outraged at the pressure to participate, lest the risk being deemed callous?
Why are those who died of 9/11-related deaths, whether physical, mental, or emotional illnesses, not also included in the ceremony? Are their deaths less significant because they weren’t literally at the WTC?
OK, I can understand why a major 10th anniversary event is warranted. But I do not see why funerals number two-through-nine were necessary.
This year, I had wanted to be there for the anniversary event. I lobbied my bosses for a media pass, as had been previously granted.
Instead of giving me permission to be there, however, the agency I work for decided it would be better to send someone from their own office (not a humble ‘consultant’ like me; after all, my nine years of writing about the WTC site doesn’t matter much to New York State bureaucrats, devoted to the chain of command and to firing people six months before their pension can kick in).
The agency guy who will attend instead of me will take soft-focus photos and sketch ink drawings and make wee watercolor works – for he balances his inner arteest with his directorship. Agency guy will likely not speak to another soul, nor take a single written note, nor write an article about the day, nor even draft captions for his non-investigative photography.
And I will stay home, witnessing my 9/11/11 from my window to Lower Manhattan and via NY1. And I will probably wonder why I ever wanted to be part of the funereal festival in the first place.
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| The south pool of the new National 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center |
