Tribute to Black Tuesday

This article will be a tribute to those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. It must be-I don’t have it in me to write about anything else. I’m sure all of us are reacting nearly the same. We try to go about our business the best we can, but we’re living in a fog of numbness. It’s still surreal, still too much like a movie. My closest connection to the tragedy is “friends of friends” who are firefighters in NYC. I can’t imagine how those who have lost someone dear to them are feeling. American life has stopped, and when it starts again, I think it will be changed.

Suddenly, my list of priorities is completely different. All those problems I thought I had last week? They’re totally insignificant now. I’ve been asking people who lived through Pearl Harbor how they think this compares. They’ve all said, “It’s worse.” My generation has lived through the Challenger explosion and Columbine-until now, those were our greatest tragedies. Oh yes, the Gulf War too. But that was too far away to touch me here, secure in America.

I think my generation is somewhat enamored with the World War II era. We’ve had movie after movie about it in the last few years. It seems to us to be a time of heroes, a time of struggle and great triumph...but a time safely removed from us. Now, here we are in the midst of such a time. I heard someone say during a news interview that he hoped our generation would live up to the generations before us, and that we would make them proud. Amen.

As I see faces connected with names, and hear all the human stories, my heart breaks. It seems impossible to go on with daily life. And as our nation prepares for war, I know that life will be very different in the future. Yet we must go on, and prove to this enemy that America still stands proud.

I think we have made a good start. I am so proud of all the firefighters, police, and rescue workers for their courage, and proud of President Bush and all our leaders in Washington for their unity and determination. Our country is united once again. As horrific as this is, I think our country may be healed of some of our previous hurts through this-we now see our petty bickering as just that, and we’ve been reminded that everything else is worth less than nothing compared to humanity. But whatever happens in the future, we must take our motivation and our determination from those who have died, innocently and completely without cause. They cannot be forgotten as our grief turns to anger and our thoughts turn to swift justice.

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