It wasn’t enough that I became terribly depressed after watching the images from September 11th. Nor was it enough that for weeks and even now, months after that day – I’m still being bombarded with images of destruction, and tales of how these people died.
No, that’s still not enough.
Let’s GO to “Ground Zero”.
Let’s go to the site where over two thousand human beings – with lives, thoughts, souls and stories that will never be told – were killed.
Let’s go the place where the people trapped in the plane and in the buildings lost their lives in a horrific manner.
Let’s go and smell the odor of burning concrete and rotting flesh.
Let’s go and visit the spot where hopes, dreams, and loves were mass murdered.
Let’s go to see the carnage that was wrought.
It’s not that I don’t believe that that day should be forgotten, but like looking at a car-wreck on the highway – why is it necessary?
This spot – where so many were killed, their last moments of life, filled with terror and fear should be held as a remembrance of the lessons that we, as a nation had learned that day. Lessons of bravery, of selflessness, of friendship, of patriotism, of fellowship.
Not, a new tourist “hot spot”.
I will admit that I don’t understand this mentality.
For those that know me – and maybe even those of you that don’t – I’ve been mostly silent about that day. It’s not that it hasn’t touched me, or is it that I’ve reached some new profound level of being.
In many ways, I am the same as I’ve always been, however, I will admit to a touch of sadness (and a touch of pride, for the spirit of man) when I think of that day. Does this mean that I think that going to this site and stare at the rubble and the volunteers slaving away?
I know that many people have told me that they wish to go to the site, as a memorial to the events of the day and the lives lost – but would it not be a better memorial to donate that time to give blood or volunteer at a shelter, or even just going to a nursing home and brightening up the day of an elderly person?
If they have truly learned the lessons of the day – if the events have truly affected them – would the proper memorial to be, to make someone else’s life a little better? To save another life? To share and be proud of the fellowship of man that we all embrace and share?
How can going to the site of such wreckage, to stare and point and take pictures be, in any way, a memorial to the lives that were lost? What is the point? Have the images on television and the magazines not enough?
How would going there make the loss anymore real?
It is the same reason why people stop to watch a car crash; it’s some genetic flaw in man’s genetic makeup. There is something that makes us want to see horror and tragedy. To see blood and gore and destruction.
In light of the brotherhood of support that sprung up following this event, it’s horrific to think that after the first moments of sorrow and shock have past, that we have forgotten the camaraderie that had sprung up.
One of my friends in NYC told me of how everyone helped support each other that day. Of the lack of rioting and looting one would expect, as all the police, firefighters and paramedics all rushed to the World Trade Centers.
Now, after such a brilliant show of what is RIGHT with mankind, we make this symbol of our nation’s sorrow, into a tourist spot?
I am now just waiting for the t-shirt that says “my friends went to the WTC Ground Zero and I all got was this lousy t-shirt”.