On those days, I'll go and get myself a big juicy American cheeseburger with American cheese, American ketchup, and American mustard. I'll get a big bowl of American coleslaw and completely disregard the number of calories or the percentage of my daily saturated fat intake it contains. To wash it all down, how about a tall, cold glass of American Coca-Cola? And to finish it off, a perfectly swirled American vanilla ice cream cone. Today is one of those days.
It disturbs me how few people remember. I've questioned several people as to whether or not they know what today is. "Thursday?" It is only partially true that time heals all wounds. For the most part, each passing day fades the overpowering emotion and the shock, like sunlight fading that old blue couch in the living room. That is, for those who watched it on TV, who read about it day after day in the newspapers for several months. But after it had fallen off the back pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, people went back to their daily lives and it became a thing of the past.
There are those, however, who will permanently retain that wound, a wound that time can coat with dust but never heal entirely. Those are the people who physically saw it happen, who heard the unusually loud roar of the GE CF6-80C2 engines driving the Boeing 767-200ERs down Manhattan Island and onto every television screen worldwide. They felt the heat of the burning jet fuel, breathed the dust of crushed concrete & shredded paper. They ran with their own two feet from the collapsing buildings, and then back into the cloud to help their coworkers and friends, their brothers and sisters, people they didn't know.
A day will come far in the future when the final first hand memories will be extinguished by time, when the very last of those witnesses passes on as did 2,999 of their fellow Americans on September 11, 2001. At that time, the true terror of that day will be nothing more than another chapter in the history books. December 7, 1941 has seen the same decay of sentiment as the years have gone by and the number of survivors has dwindled.
Everybody still remembers 9/11, but not with the vivid horror as they did three to six years prior. For me, the twenty-four hours linking the tenth and twelfth of September always reignite the smoldering embers of pain from the attacks. I cannot forget. Every ninety-six seconds, a jet passes over downtown San Jose, descending into SJC international. Every single one of the seven hundred some-odd planes flying low over the tops of the buildings today has sent chills down my spine. I have been there, where those buildings once were. I have been to the Pentagon. I cannot forget. I have heard the tapes of their voices, in panic and in pain, from the horrified pedestrians on the pavement on Fifth Avenue to the Northwest corner of the 105th floor of Tower one, where Kevin Cosgrove and two of his colleagues stayed on the line with an emergency dispatcher until their final screams were silenced by the catastrophic structure failure 102 minutes after impact. I have seen the videos from the mobile command post in the lobby of Tower two, where the firefighters bowed their heads at each sickening crash, signaling the end of another life, a businessman unable to bear the heat of the fire above. I will not forget them.
I have a fifteen minute speech to write about videogame addiction, some studying for math, and a two page paper to compose on politics. Not today. I refuse to politicize anything on September 11; it is not a day to be political. I'd love to debate about the Iraq war and Sarah Palin, the election and the lack of evidence of a jet fuselage at the Pentagon attack, but not today. Today, like every 365th day for the past seven years, I will set aside everything to simply reflect on that day, and how lucky I am to be where I am now. Hopefully, you can find it in you to find a moment, maybe two, in your day to stop and do the same.
It was an unusually clear day. The sky was a deep, deep blue…seven years ago…
Current Mood: Sad
Listening To: "Please Remember Me" by Tim McGraw
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