Reflections: 9/11

For the past couple of weeks, as the coverage of the 10^th anniversary of 9/11 has moved into full 24/7 media frenzy, I’ve thought about addressing it here. And I don’t know how.

Memories that I thought had receded have rushed back like the floodwaters that hit Northern Virginia earlier this week. But my perspective is personal, not societal, and my memories by comparison are nothing next to the feelings that others must be experiencing today.

I remember it like it was yesterday, just like you do. I know what I was doing when the first call came in, just like I remember vividly seeing the Challenger explode in the sky 15 years earlier, or where we were when the levees broke in New Orleans four summers after my generation’s Pearl Harbor.

I remember frantically trying to call my family — I was in Pennsylvania writing a story, Jill was in Virginia, my parents were in Texas. I remember the eerie silence when I returned home the next evening, and how it lingered until planes were allowed to fly again from National Airport.

I remember the pledges of cooperation among our political leaders, and the vows to track down the people who had done this. And how that spirit of cooperation — that feeling that we all are in this together — didn’t last, at least among our members of Congress.

I remember riding my bike to the Pentagon and to Arlington Cemetery at 7:30 a.m. on the first anniversary of 9/11, pulled there by something but silent even then.

I remember the first time we took our kids to the World Trade Center site, reading the names of the missing and dead on a cold winter day two years after it happened. I remember how my stomach sank as we scanned the list, just as it did when I walked through the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the first time at age 18.

I remember reading about and watching — with a mixture of insatiable curiosity and morbid fascination — the first season of “Rescue Me,” the show about the brave but damaged firefighters suffering from survivor’s guilt after making it through 9/11.

I remember revisiting the story I was writing on 9/11/01 for the fifth anniversary, determined to do it justice even as I was taking on a new job.

I remember the death of my second “mom” — Fran — on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, just six weeks after my dad’s death.

I remember sitting in the assistant principal’s office at Ben’s new school two years ago, having just moved him to New York, and listening as the administrators debated the exact times to have moments of silent reflection. I remember leaving the school and walking to a memorial service honoring those killed from the Engine 54 station down the street.

I remember the little boy standing quietly, dressed in his FDNY dress blues and hat, not saying a word. I remember how his mom held the boy — who likely was a baby when 9/11 occurred — tightly to her and how he turned to give her a hug when the ceremony ended.

Leave the commentary to the pundits. Watch what you will — or don’t. I saw what I needed to see when that boy hugged his mom.

On a day like this, these moments of self reflection — realizing just how fortunate I am to be where I am and to have the family and friends that I do, thanks to the selfless sacrifice of others — are enough.

I don’t know what else to say…