In Memoriam

Mutantur omnia nos et mutamur in illis.

Today is unseasonably cold, sweatshirt weather-- and probably for the best. It seems like beautiful days in September just break the hearts of New Yorkers.

Isn't it surreal, that eight years have passed? It feels like forever, and it feels like yesterday. If we only knew on September 10, 2001, that we were about to lose the world we loved-- that everything was about to change-- what would we have done?

I think about the sky outside my apartment on 77th street, a thick black tube of smoke cutting across the blue sky of a beautiful day. The sight of my father in the backyard of his house, watching fighter planes hurtle overhead towards Manhattan. The smell of burning in Bay Ridge, days later. Papers from desks that turned up on the streets of Brooklyn. Missing posters all over the city-- the news filled with people crying and holding pictures of their daughters, dads and best friends. I remember hoping against hope, with each story, that their family member would arrive home, covered in soot, and hug them, but knowing in my heart that they wouldn't-- and feeling numb. I think about how The Pile burned for months, and how the construction lights that were always on made it look like it was daytime downtown even in the middle of the night. I think about how it barely snowed that winter, and how I believed it was God's way of trying to make it easier for the people still searching. I remember the obituary pages were filled for months on end, and the people who stood at the approach to Ground Zero with signs that read "Thank you" and cheering for the rescue workers. I remember the day my brother came home after four days digging at The Pit, and how we sat in the backyard drinking beers and trying to laugh. We heard a loud rat-a-tat-tat on a car passing by and everyone panicked at the noise until Jimmy told us to relax, it was an American flag on the back of someone's car antennae, flapping in the wind.

I think about the days when I volunteered down at Pike's Slip, where the Army was organizing the donations that came in from across the country-- truckloads of food and clothing, medical supplies and water. I was opening boxes and sorting the goods, and found a jar of peanut butter from a grade school in the Midwest. A child had scrawled "We love you" across its yellow lid.

I think about when we just stood frozen, collectively, as a nation, watching helplessly.

I remember the rumors-- people convening at local bars to trade information about who had been seen at what hospital. Old classmates, friends and family-- no one wanted to believe they were gone, so we'd believe whatever else we could.

I think about the months after, when a sudden noise would stop our hearts, and we'd hold our breath, paralyzed with fear.

In the days after the attacks, David Letterman said "If you live to be 1,000 years old, will it ever make any sense?"

Eight years later, I can honestly say it won't. I still get angry, but my overwhelming feeling is sadness. I still feel so, so sad. I am filled with uncomprehending grief. It will never make sense. But I guess it's not for me to understand.

What I can say is that we-- together and as individuals-- have done what we can to face this with dignity. Our world changed that day, and we changed with it. Mutantur omnia nos et mutamur in illis. We didn't have a choice. But we can choose now to remember what happened on September 11, 2001, in all the detail we can muster. We can choose to bear witness to history, and to do what we can to honor and remember the people who lost their lives that day. We can choose to live in the unity and dignity and pride that we found that day, and we can choose hope, even in the face of unbearable despair.

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

-In Memoriam A.H.H., by Lord Tennyson