It's strange to think it's been 10 years since 9/11. Some parts of it I remember really well: the whole city out on the streets, a lot of us trying to get downtown, terrified of what we'd find. Other parts only come back to me when I read the newspaper coverage that is everywhere today, such as the never-ending funeral notices.
Images from that time stick with me, from the thousands of missing persons posters that covered seemingly every square inch of available wall space, to the groups of people who wandered around wearing disposable air filters over their mouths. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't personally know any of the dead, but even I was just one step removed - we all knew someone who suffered a loss. A colleague at work, for example, lost her firefighter husband. What on earth could I say to her in the hallway? Sorry just didn't seem to cut it. It still doesn't.
I do distinctly remember the pride I felt in New Yorkers, and in the country as a whole, as we saw so many relief workers from out of town volunteer their time and their mental and physical health to help clean up the mess. A few of my friends gave these people a free place to stay, and we all thanked them on the streets, in the coffee shops, whenever we could. But thank you doesn't seem to cut it either.
The legacy of that day is fear. It makes me sick to admit it, but I do get afraid on this day especially that something awful will happen again. We never, ever thought it would happen in our own backyard, and it did. Intellectually, I know that living in fear is letting 'them' win, but emotionally it's hard not to be just the tiniest bit afraid. But soldier on we must, not least for all of the people who died ten years ago today.
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