Aftershocks

I had been at my job as children's librarian when a patron announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. How tragic, I remember thinking. A random incident, an unfortunate pilot error. Minutes later, another plane hit the other tower. Not so random. The world suddenly shifted.

Americans could no longer be complacent. For the first time ever, many of us felt fear for our personal safety. We were no longer invincible. Terrorists had struck our Achilles' heel, momentarily crippling us.

Two weeks previously, we had taken my parents into New York City for their 50th wedding anniversary.  We'd taken a bus tour, which took us right under the walkway connecting the twin towers.  My mother took a picture of the towers from the Ellis Island ferry.  My California brother, who'd flown out to join us that day, called me on September 11 to make sure I was okay. We both were reeling from being so recently there, seeing those buildings so sturdy and unshakable, unable to imagine them reduced to dust and shrapnel.

At home, just a 50-minute drive away from New York City, it was difficult to believe such tragedy was happening on a day so serene in my neighborhood. Six local families had lost loved ones. Friends who commuted to the city for work regaled us with stories: The man who stayed home that morning because it was his anniversary. The man who worked in another part of the city who spent the rest of the day trying to get home, eventually walking because mass transit was stalled, until he found a motorist--a stranger--heading in his direction who gave him a lift home. The family who fled Battery Park to rent the house across the street from us.


The worst situations seem to bring out the best in us. 9/11 made heroes out of everyday people. There were plenty of heartwarming and heartbreaking stories.

So what has happened to us in the last ten years? We're at once comforted and annoyed by the imposition of security measures in public places. We do a double-take at swarthy, Middle-Eastern looking men. We wonder if some other covert plan is in the works to take us out. Who is friend? Who is foe?

I think it was good to revisit that day, to remember how our country bonded in those days and weeks afterward. Because time and distance has caused us to forget, a little bit, who we are, how we should be. Even those of us who weren't there that day were changed, and it's good to see how it strengthened us and unified us.

We have moved on. But no, we should never forget.