Every since I’ve been writing on this page & this platform, & 9/11’s come arnd, I’ve talked abt the visceral sensations & feelings all of us who witnessed this horrific event, can relate to. In one respect, it’s perhaps the world’s greatest example of going thru a shared trauma, at once.
As my friends in the first responder community refer to it: maybe not PTSD (emphasis on the D for disorder), for all, but certainly PTS, or post traumatic stress.
This yr, I wanted to go a little of a diff direction than previous yrs. I thought of this Charles Dickens famous quote: “It was the best of times…it was the worst of times.”…& I flipped it. Only seemed appropriate to flip it as 9/11/01, is one of the worst days we’ve experienced – not only in US history, but in world history.
We all watched a trauma play out in front of us. For some of us (myself included) it was in person. For others, it was on tv. I think the last time I felt that wasin first grade when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up on national TV. All of our teachers were weeping bc it was the first time a teacher had gone up into space w the astronauts.
Like any event, some were more directly impacted than others. Some had fam members that perished. For them it was truly the worst of times.
And in the same breath – what followed – even in talking to those in the 21 yrs since, it was some of the best of times.
We felt together as a nation. I remember going to the first Yanks game back when the president threw out the first pitch to chants of “USA, USA.” People crossed the streets politely. Cars waited for pedestrians. Not everyone was in such a rush to get to their next appt. We volunteered to help those areas & ppl who’d been most impacted. We felt together.
It showed some of the worst experience we thru give us a perspective to appreciate the little things so much more.
It’s a far cry from where we are as a country…where we are as a world right now. I hope we can get back to those best of times – & hope it doesn’t take s tragedy of that magnitude for it to happen. I believe people deep down are good. We need to help ppl heal & bring that to the surface.