A year ago, on September 11, 2013, I wrote a 9/11 post in anticipation of my daughter being born a couple of months later. Today, it seems only fitting that I should write a new one. Today was her first 9/11.
Thirteen years ago at 8:46 am, I was seventeen years old. I was getting ready for class in my dorm room at 11th Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan. I heard it on the news before I saw it for myself. Then I walked outside, and nothing was ever the same again. This year at 8:46 am, I was feeding my 9-month-old daughter. The two of us sat together in silence for one minute - she, content in her mother's arms, and me, silently awash with every emotion I can think of. Today I felt the need to be somewhere meaningful, and here in DC, I knew where that was. I have never done anything particularly "9/11" on 9/11, but after my daughter's morning nap, we loaded up in the car and headed for the Pentagon.
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| Pentagon Memorial - 9/11/14 |
Our visit to the Pentagon Memorial today - the first for both of us - was, like all of my thoughts and feelings about 9/11, many things. It was sad. It was difficult. It was beautiful. It was inspiring. It was humbling. But most of all, it was peaceful. After walking the perimeter of the memorial a couple of times, my daughter and I found a shady spot and sat down on one of the benches - each represents and is marked with the name of a life lost at that site thirteen years ago today. There were many people at the memorial today. Traffic buzzed by on the nearby interstates, and planes constantly took off and landed at the nearby airport. But as we sat there quietly, the most distinct noise I heard was the sound of babbling water coming from the small reflecting pools underneath each and every one of those benches. "Isn't it peaceful?," I said to my baby daughter. Oh how far we have come in thirteen years. There was a time when I would never have believed that "peaceful" would describe any part of my 9/11.
As we sat there, I told her about the memorial. I don't know how much of speech she understands at 9 1/2 months of age, but I can tell you she sat quietly and looked right at me the whole time I spoke. She didn't drink her water or play with her doll. For a few moments, she just looked at me and listened. I told her that all of those benches we could see represented people who were not with us anymore. They are people we lost right here at this place thirteen years ago. Mommy was in New York that day, and she remembers it like it was yesterday. It was a beautiful late summer day, a lot like today, but it was a terrible day. All of the people whose names are on these benches are not here anymore, but we are. We're still here. And we have to remember them. We always have to remember them. And there are so many people who work inside this building - I pointed to the Pentagon, where the only marks remaining from 9/11 are a part of the facade that is newer, stronger, and somehow more proud - and who work with daddy and who work all over the world to make sure that never happens again.
It was simplistic. But, after all, she is only 9 1/2 months old. And it was something. I managed to tell her something. And yes, tears rolled down from underneath my sunglasses while I spoke. But I wiped them away on my sleeve, and I kept talking. My voice broke, but I cleared my throat, and I kept talking. I told my daughter something about 9/11 today.
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| The Pentagon - 9/11/14 |
We walked quietly through the memorial a couple more times, then we started walking back toward our car. I looked back a couple more times at the Pentagon, and I shed a couple more tears. But this year, my tears were not all tears of sadness. Some were. Some always will be. But today, some were tears of pride. Our Pentagon looked so strong to me today; stronger, even, than it did thirteen years and a day ago, because now it has that newer piece of facade, facing the memorial and the direction from which the plane came, standing as a testament to the fact that they did not stop us. We are still here.
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| 1 WTC in April 2012 |
It made me think, of course, of One World Trade Center. My husband and I were there in 2012 before it was completely finished. I wasn't sure how I would feel visiting the site, but we went there anyway. And I don't have the words to really explain it, but seeing it made my soul feel better. I have seen a lot of things in that part of Manhattan. I have seen the Twin Towers, an iconic part of the New York skyline that I so loved to look at when I moved there in 2001. I have seen those towers billowing the blackest smoke against the bluest sky. I have seen them burning. I have felt the earth tremor when they fell. I have seen a cloud of dust and smoke there that remained for months, illuminated each night by the bright lights of first search and rescue and then clean up. I have long wondered if it could ever again not look empty. To be honest, it always will look a bit empty to me. But One World Trade Center makes me proud. It reaches toward the sky, higher than any other building in the western hemisphere. It too stands proud - a testament to the fact that they did not stop us.
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| Actual letter - Nov. 2001 |
I have reflected a lot over the past year about how far I have come in the past thirteen years. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I considered leaving school to join our nation's military. Those of you who know me personally know that this is something I never envisioned for myself. But it felt like it was time to fight. Ultimately, I stayed in school. I changed my major to International Relations. I focused my coursework as much as possible on Islamic Studies. I learned as much as I could. After college, I joined Teach For America and was assigned to teach middle school social studies. I can tell you that when I taught the unit on the Middle East, I did not teach it from the text book. In the years since I have gone to law school; I have married a military officer; I have followed him around the country and found several volunteer roles in which I can also serve our nation's military families; I have given birth to a beautiful baby girl. The military wars that began in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 were not my fight. Those were and are my husband's fight, and that of his friends and colleagues. But I have begun to find my own fight, and I finally feel like I am beginning to fight it.
A couple of years ago on the eve of 9/11, I wrote that my ongoing goal was to learn to live less with the guilt of seeing September 12, 2001, and more to honor those lost and to somehow leave the world more kind, more tolerant, and more just. I have a long, long way to go, but today for the first time, watching my baby take in the water flowing, the flags flying, and the sun shining, I felt like I've made a pretty decent start. Like I told her: We are still here. They did not stop us.
