Five years ago I was in college...just getting out of class when I heard that 2 planes had crashed in to the World Trade Center. I ran to the journalism school and stood in the hallway in awe as we watched CNN on the huge monitors. I couldn't believe what I was seeing replayed over and over and over again.
That day just changed so many lives in ways that could not be imagined. So today I decided to watch United 93 and I cried...a lot. I cried from the moment they showed the second plane hitting the second tower until the end of the movie.
I haven't been to Ground Zero since it happened. To me it is a sacred place, to others it is a tourist trap. I have too much respect for the dead to go and just gawk. No one in my family has been there since. I guess I am a true New Yorker despite the Jersey Drive...it's like something about that place...we can't go near it. My sister used to work at a Chase bank down there and she just can't bring herself to go near it. I live in NYC and even I can't do it...not yet. Not sure what it will take for me or anyone in my family to go there.
I remember driving down the NJ Turnpike at night when they had two huge spotlights shooting straight up in to the sky to resemble the towers that once stood there. It was so beautiful and so sad.
As Americans we have enjoyed a freedom that others can only imagine. But all of that was taken from us on 9/11/01. Freedom has a cost that can't be calculated. As a Black person I don't wear physical shackles but the shackles of the mind are even more powerful than actual shackles. Everyone does things differently now because of 9/11 and we will never go back to the way things once were.
Some day my kids will have to do reports about 9/11. And I hope I can help them without crying. I hope I can still remember what life was like before 9/11.
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3 comments:
I don't think I could watch United 93 or the new movie. Like you said, we are still in bondage - anyone that doesn't think so, hasn't flown anywhere in the past 5 years. Its hard to believe that its been 5 years because it feels like it was just yesterday for me.
I give you credit for watching "United 93." I can't do it. I was looking through file video on one of our feed services in the newsroom on Friday and watched the second plane fly into the South Tower. I cringed and my eyes watered. It's still painful, five years later. I get into movies in a way that I know I would be sobbing if I watched "United 93" or "World Trade Center."
Now, if I can just make it through the next couple of days of having to relive things because of the anniversary.
Oh, Good Evening.
It's funny yet sad...but for our parents they remember exactly where they were when Kennedy was shot and MLK was shot...our defining memory will be where we were when the attacks on Sept 11 happened.
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