The Approaching Thunder and the Return of Tranquility: a blog entry in remembrance of September 11, 2001

Today is the ninth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Despite my usual tendency to be wordy, I find myself unsure of what to write.  On occasions such as this, days when we remember the tragic events of the past, I feel that there is nothing I can say or write — nothing I can express — that would be appropriate or good enough.  Still, I feel the need to write something, to not have silence misconstrued as uncaring.

One of the most common questions I hear asked about tragic events such as this is, “Where were you?”  Perhaps that’s a place to start.  On that day, I was in second period English class, during eighth grade.  (I was thirteen years old.)  There was a phone call, and my teacher answered the phone.  She told us that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon.  We listened to the radio for the rest of the period, and some of the teachers didn’t have the heart to teach that day.

Yesterday, I found my (pen and paper) journal entry from that day.  It is in the form of a letter to God.  (I was a theist back then.)  With apologies for the writing abilities of my younger self, I want to share a few sentences of what I wrote on that day.  After relating the events that happened at school, I wrote, “At home Daddy, Mommy, [my brother] and I watched the news.  There was pretty much news on every channel.  Seeing footage of the plane going through the South Tower of the Twin Towers and of both towers collapsing really shocked me.  My heart hurt.  And it still does when I think about it.”  Later in the entry, I also wrote, “Please don’t let this turn into WIII [I think I meant to write ‘WWIII’ (World War III) - Ani], GOD.  We learn a lot about wars in school, but I’ve never lived through one.”  I remember thinking of the wars and other violent tragedies that we’d learned about in school.  They had always seemed so very far away, whether in time or space, and these attacks brought great fear into my heart.

It is difficult to find words appropriate for how I and many others felt on that day.  It was a mixture of fear, confusion, anger, and sadness.  Through it all, though, there was some hope as we saw that there were people who were willing to help others, to run into a disaster site to save others, to offer their help to those who were hurting.  I think Anne Frank said it better in her diary than I did in mine, when she wrote the following:

We’re much too young to deal with these problems, but they keep thrusting themselves on us until, finally, we’re forced to think up a solution, though most of the time our solutions crumble when faced with the facts.  It’s difficult in times like these:  ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality.  It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical.  Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death.  I see the world slowly being transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions.  And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.  In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals.  Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to realize them![1]

It’s one of my favorite passages from that book.  I quote it not to compare the attacks to what happened to Anne Frank and millions of others, but rather because this passage captures how, when we look out into the world, it does not conform to our idea of what the world should be.  We see death and destruction.  We wonder why this happens and why there are people who would do such horrible things to their fellow human beings.  Don’t they understand?  Don’t they have a sense of right and wrong?  Don’t they know that the people who were killed had lives and loved ones, and that their loved ones cry for them as any human would?

All of this is scary for anyone to contemplate.  Being presented with an act of such horrible violence against innocent human beings and against my country brought this to the forefront of my mind.  I was confused, afraid, and sad; I know now that this was not just because I was too young but because this is how any human being would feel.

One day, perhaps, we and our descendents will look back on September 11, 2001 the same way we look back on other tragedies — with sadness, but with the distinct feeling that they happened so very long ago.  There are so many horrible events which happen every day, so much fear and destruction in the world, even today.  Each such horror is added to all the others, stretching back into the past like a chain of misery, blood, and tears.

And yet, despite all of this, all is not lost.  There is good in the world; there are people who help each other, who look out for one another, who speak up when others are hurting, who still their fear and risk their lives to save others.  As much hate as there is in the hearts of humanity, there is hope and love, too.  Living on consists of holding on to the idea that these last two will win out.

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References

[1] Frank, Anne.  Entry dated Saturday, July 15, 1944 from The Diary of a Young Girl.  New York:  Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 2009, pg 333.

ISBN:  0385480334