The Diary of Queen Mothy |
9/11 Remembered written @ 10:37 PM on September 11, 2002 I remember that the sky was the clearest shade of blue I had seen in years, the kind of blue that makes you think the earth goes on forever and ever. It was cloudless from here to the East Coast. I remember. I remember the sunrise. There were small puffs of clouds near the horizon, but the sky was flushed with gold and violet, a touch of crimson. It took my breath away, as did many things that day. I cannot remember first period. Or second. Only at the end of third period was it like that I was suddenly living again. As if God had turned on the light switch in me, and only then was their consciousness. The coach came into the classroom, and said something horrible had happened in New York to my teacher. "What happened?" I asked April. She responded like nothing important had happened. "Oh, something blew up at the World Trade Center." I grimaced deeply. The television in the classroom was turned on. And there was one tower burning. My God, it's happening again. Just like in '93. I remembered the third grade suddenly, hearing Mrs. Smith talk about how it was such a dreadful thing, what happened in New York that week. Now there were sirens going again. Blairing and whirling and screaming like a battle was beginning. In some way a battle had begun. Then came the news from D.C. My God, I think, this was planned. This was not a coincidence. The pattering of panicking feet across pavement. The shouting of orders. The sirens-- blairing and singing and screaming in misery. I discover the second tower hit. I feel something die in me, a cold sinking feeling as if I was dying with those who really perished. My God, I think, I am witnessing history. Quick, Sam, note the time on the clock. You will remember this. This is what everyone expects you to tell your grandchildren. Oh my God, this was planned, this was planned! Who could have done this? Why? How? Unconsciously, I draw toward the television. I don't think I blinked. I could feel my insides cringing and curling inside of me. I should be there. I should be doing something. My God, what is going on? My God, I dreamt of this. In August... just about a month ago. I was coming home from a trip to Rhode Island, and we were passing through New York. It was dark. The city was aglow like it existed on a thousand tiny stars, and standing promanently against the blackness of the night were the towers. "Hmm. What if two airplanes crashed into those buildings? What would happen? Would they stand burning?" Would they stand burning? "Would they topple over to the side, and knock other buildings down?" Sam, do not even think of something so horrible. More lives would be lost. You really would die. "And if they toppled over to the side, would it create a domino effect through the entire city?" Sam, do not imagine such things. It may come true. "Or would they just collapse?" I see the first tower go down. I could see it giving way moments before. The sky in New York now looks like a knife went through it, and I was looking through the darkness of space. But it was smoke. The sirens kept blairing and screaming. Have you ever heard anything so horrible? The people were screaming. I see the people on 42nd Street scream. I see the terror and hopelessness people running from the debris that was once a majestic structure. I see tears. I am frozen. How many? Hundreds? Thousands? How many parts of me are dying with them? There is silence in the classroom. Pencils have halted in mid-air. Eyes do not stir. More students file into the room. They gather around me. I do not care if I block their view. I am hardly aware of anything. There is still one tower left. One momento of what they stood for. Can they save the one? I should be there. The sirens are screaming through dust clouds. People stumble and cough and vomit. I should be there. The second tower implodes. I take steps forward as if running toward the television, as if desiring more than anything else to run toward the falling tower and save one person, please God, just one person. And let it take me. Cries. Wailing. Those sirens. Forever going. An entire nation is hushed. The West Coast wakes up. I'm sure they would have rather stayed in bed than to wake up to this world. This world should not ever have been. If you could ever feel the time periods of history change so rapidly, as if the sound barrier was broken, you felt it this day. Thousands then? Tens of thousands? Tens of thousands visited the towers each day. My private estimation is 20,000. Why? Why? I recall doing very little homework. I still have not learned to forgive my French teacher for turning off the television. Time had moved to a stand still. The country was suspended over strange waters. Other buildings collapse. Bush did what he could. It was the only thing he did right. Something was dead within me. The sky was painfully blue, as if mocking New York and Washington. The temperature was 86 degrees. War, everyone said. I believed them. I could not eat lunch. Something had died. You cannot eat to sustain life when you're dead. Those pattering feet, the wailing, the crumbling, and the sirens-- screaming and screaming. Some countries mocked us: welcome to our world; now you know what we put up with. Over 50 other countries weep. Who can remember the world before 8:26am? Only the flushed gold and violets, a beautiful sky that had to change. The country mourns for a long time. We emerge from the rubble just as strong. Patriotism flows like the rivers. Ah, the patriotism. It felt so pure, it felt like what I had felt all along, only it radiated from millions. This was good. I imagined myself looking back 50 years from now at those early months, and I would say to my grandchildren, "There was never a time when I felt more proud of my country and kinsmen than those days. It was like the sleeping giant had awakened once more and blessed the generations who had never known what it had been like to fight for freedom. Never was there a time when I was more proud. The greatest thing your great-great-great-great grandparents had done was take that ship." But then I felt, God, it's the first year of the millennium, and now look what a mess has been made. "New millennium, same old shit," I had said at the New Year's. It was as if all my words would be cursed from that day forth. Everything bad that I imagined would happen has happened. I feel guilty. I should feel this sorrow, this grief. I don't quite understand why; after all, I knew no one in PA, DC, or NYC. Why did I feel like the families that had been left behind? Because my words had caused it. The songs of patriotism, the red, white, and blue, the memory of that boy who walked in with a rubber chicken duct taped to his white shirt whom he loving called Osama bin Laden. bin Laden. The Cincinnati Enquirer referred to him then and refers to him now as "Mr. bin Laden." How dare they give him that title? Mister? I have not forgiven the newspaper for that. "Mister" is a title given to a person of decency. How can anyone be consumed by so much hate? How can anyone be so lost, as to see night when there is day, goodness when there is evil? If I could sit down and speak with him now, I would first slap him across the face and then ask "why?" Damn fool. "You have just sentenced this world to another century of bloodshed because of what you did!" The country tried to heal, but I nursed the pain and the wound. I tried to revive that part within me that had died. I grew bitter; for now it was no longer clear if people professed true patriotism or if it was only the "in style" thing to do. I quietly cursed the people who said, "Get over it. It's happened. Let's move on." I was not ready to move on. What I loved dearest had been attacked. People I could have loved if I had known them had died. Tears still flowed. Justice had not been administered in my mind. I saw falling buildings in my dreams. I heard the bagpipes. "No, I won't back down. No, I won't back down. You can stand me up at the gates of Hell but I won't back down." I wanted to give up everything in my life to go into the army for a brief time. If it had helped, I would do it. If the cause was pure and not riddled with political conspiracies, I would do it. If it wasn't hopeless, I would do it. The replays on television. Those sirens. The shouting. The rumbling of the fire. "Let's roll." "Oh my God, you saved my life! Thank you, thank you! Thank you!" What did Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and all the others think that day? Did all of Heaven stand at the precipice of an unseen cloud in horrified silence. I'm sure Adams would have been silent at first, and then he would have said something like, "Oh, they'll correct it. I have faith in them down there. Everything will be all right one day." What did my grandmother think as she watched from just beyond the gates? Did she know the turmoil that was unleashing itself and devouring me slowly? Time would heal this, I thought. Time has healed it. I watched in May as the last bits of debris were cleaned from the towers. The drums and bagpipes again: Tap. Tap. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Tap. Tap. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Time healed everything except me. I remember Mr. Hume saying the day after the attacks, "The media will be talking about this for the next twenty years." He made it seem like our lives were over. Those monstrous clouds of dust. The people choking, vomiting. The sirens, forver wailing through my memories. I was under a state of trauma. I could not do anything to help them except be strong. I remember Ashley's tears. She had crossed herself when the towers had gone down. It was okay to cry. For three months, I would not remove my red, white, and blue ribbon. A year later. A new school, a new environment. I go outside at 11:45 to the university plaza. The day before, a fraternity had set out 3,000 flags for the 3,000 parts of my soul that have not been revived. I take a flag from a guy. I take a program from a girl. I have my sunglasses on; the sun is really bright. I find Brian and Kayla. They stand in front of me. And I? I am in the middle of an ocean of flags. Thousands of students had gathered in the plaza, around the flag poles. The band is before me. I see their sheet music: "America the Beautiful." I see a great American flag that covers ten windows draped from the roof of the old science building. The National Anthem begins. People of importance and special guests take the floor in front of the stage. Over 50 students carrying 50 flags of different countries file through, to represent the souls that were taken from 50 countries. People are waving their own U.S. flags wildly. It was so beautiful. Most people held them up above their heads the entire ceremony. I did. Taps are played by the local retired veterans. There are remembrance banners hanging from the fire trucks. There are police officers dressed in ceremonial uniform. The veterans raise the flag to the top of the pole, and then at half mast. The speeches begin. Nothing I hadn't heard these past months. "America will endure. We will be stronger than ever before." When they began to ceremoniously place the wreaths at the foot of the half-raised flag, I began to cry. I realized consciously what I had known all along: there is a part of me I was not ever getting back. There was a sorrow that could never die. I lost nothing except a type of innocence, and I acted like I lost my own life most unfairly. I should have been there. I should have rushed into those buildings and screamed at the top of my lungs. Instead, I have only the screaming sirens and the Tap, tap, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat to fill the void. I still have many tears left to shed. How could I be strong for the country, like everyone in their speeches said to, when I couldn't get over this profound loss? What did I lose besides something everyone looses at the end of childhood? I don't know. I am more perceptive than even I could have ever dreamed-- I mourn like I had known all 3,000 people. It will take the rest of my life to mourn for each of them properly; is this my punishment for taking my old life for granted? They want us to sing "God Bless America." Everyone around me did. Everyone around me was weeping. It's okay to cry, I realized. It's okay. Cry now. I cried. My sunglasses could not conceal it. I would have screamed if I could. The rolling sea of American flags was my only bliss in that moment. If this love could last forever... but what would our grandchildren think? The towers would be nothing to them like history is nothing to them. Or to us. They would treat 9/11 as we had once treated Pearl Harbor. It may mean nothing to them. I hope I am wrong. And that was another thing. I come from the generation that was young enough to be old enough for war. Sean is in the army now as we speak. You have to wonder if how we felt on 9/11 was the way seniors in high school in 1941 felt as the disaster at Pearl Harbor unfolded. The ceremony is over. I walk a little way with Brian, but he leaves. The rolling tide of flags on the hillside that the fraternity set out the night before is still strong. People did not want to take the flags because they thought it meant something sacred. Eventually, it became evident that the administration wanted everyone on the campus to take a flag with them. For a moment, it reminds me like Arlington, each flag set out so carefully, fluttering with a breath of wind, each one representing a soul. I imagine that everyone who picked up a flag slowly but surely was taking responsibility to remember that one soul for the rest of their days, even if not by name. Then I have a thought. Even though I already have a flag, I go over to that great cluster on the hillside and pick one more. I sit down under a tree on the the grass and begin to write on the rod. "Never forget. Sepetember 11, 2001." "Hello," says a voice. I look up and there's a girl. She has a notepad and paper in her hand. I could tell immediately that she's a journalism major. I force a smile. "I am from 'The Northerner.' I saw you writing on your flag there and thought I'd ask you a few questions." Remembering my journalism class in high school quite fondly, I say sure. She asks what I'm writing. I say, "Well, I have kind of decided that every year on September 11, I would buy a flag and label it on a year after year basis. It would be my way of remembering and be kind of a momento." What I forgot to say was that by the end of my life, when I'm 80 or 90, I will have accumulated so many flags, each labeled with this date, that it would somehow be a measure of how much I loved my country. And when I died, perhaps then my descendents will realize how 9/11 has changed me, how 3,000 parts of me died in one day. "Do you think a memorial ceremony such as this should be performed every year?" she asks me. "Well," I say, "I think there is a difference between remembering and dwelling on an event such as this. I think it's too soon to say. I have no solid opinion. It's only been a year." A moment later, I realized my paradox. Did collecting a flag year after year mean I was dwelling on 9/11? How to explain my behavior for a year, the fact that I still believe I am functioning without 3,000 parts? That fact that my heart is heavy with unshed tears? What I said may be truth, but I certainly was not living truth. A few more questions later, she takes down my name, my majors, and leaves. I am alone again, alone next to that awesome sea of flags. I observe the red, white, and blue hanging limply from students' book bags, rolled up in their hands. Some are carrying two. I write on the other flag, "Remember. September 11, 2002." So this is how it will be, for the rest of my life. Maybe with each flag, I'll gain a little bit of what died in me. Dryly, I think that I ought to go to that counseling session they're having for traumatized students tomorrow. Maybe I will. I go back to the dorm. I look up at the sky. It's that pristine, cloudless, endless, beautiful sapphire blue that it was one year ago. I wonder what that means. Will it be this way every year, as if Heaven is remembering? An uneasy peace tip-toes through the door of my being. Life goes on, I know. This is another burden, however, that I may have to bear, a scar that may not fully heal, a redness around my eyes that may forever sting. Dwelling like this may entitle the terrorists to a win, but take me rather than anyone else.
A Bit of History ~ And Onward! L'Amour Toujours! - August 08, 2005 |
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