I've be reading a lot of the coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 circulating this week. It was always moving delving into the stories of the people who didn't make it out, and ten years ago I remember being brought to tears a few times. But nothing like my emotional response now.
Why is that? I can think of one ten-month-old reason.
All of the "reflections" on 9/11 talk about how the events changed us. We're so different now. Nothing can ever be the same. But no one ever mentions the simple fact that we would have changed regardless of the events of 9/11.
High school kids now have careers. Immature twenty-somethings are now married with children. Parents are grandparents.
How have I changed? I can't read stories about widowed mothers and orphaned babies. I mean, I can read them. But halfway through the page starts shaking and my eyes blur up.
In his recollection of the days after 9/11, Roger Cohen did me in with this sentence:
A woman searching for her lost husband had tacked to a wall an ultrasound showing an unborn child who would now grow up fatherless.
So if you saw my crying in a public place for no apparent reason this week, that's probably why. (If you'd like to do some crying of your own, try here and here.)
So in addition to asking how 9/11 changed us, we should also ask: How have the changes in ourselves affected the way we look at 9/11?
No comments:
Post a Comment