On That Day

 

On that day, I was in my quad cubicle (a cubicle that would hold four desks) at the insurance company.

There were rumblings that the head honchos were going to close the office in Atlanta (actually Smyrna) and move it to Utica, New York.  Something about cost-efficiency.

Someone stood up in their cubicle, which was next to mine and said, "Did you hear an airplane crashed into World Trade Center?"

I hadn't heard, but I thought it had to be an accident. I had seen a story on "Unsolved Mysteries" about a plane flying into The Empire State Building.  I thought there must have been some bad weather or something.

Wrong.

It was a terrorist attack.  The reason was unclear. It could have been about the wealth of The United States, but later we learn the attackers came from well-to-do backgrounds.

  
I've even read they had a beef about sky scrappers.   I've never had a beef with any building in my life.

I always thought it has something to do with being absolute nutjobs intent on making people fear them.  They were anti-Semitic and anti-anything that didn't fit the square pegs of their brains.

It was an absolute nightmare.  It was worse than Pearl Harbor.

On that day, though, we were united. United in our anger. United in our grief.  

It took a while, but we slipped back into a bad old habit.  Our habit of blaming anybody except the person (or persons) that committed the crime.  It was Bush's fault. He wanted to start a war because he had "daddy issues."  It was Cheney's fault-Texas oil man, you know.
The planes couldn't cause the towers to fall.  No, George W. Bush set up a controlled demolition.

On that day, Senators and Congressmen from both parties gathered outside The Capitol and sang "God Bless America".  I thought it was corny then.   I don't anymore.

On that day, we admired the people that ran towards The Towers: the policemen and the firemen.  

On that day, we had remarkable stories of heroism. We heard the last words a husband or a wife would say to their life's love. We heard about children losing fathers and mothers.  We heard about parents losing their adult children. We heard about people losing friends.

I didn't know anyone that lost their life on that day.   A co-worker had a niece that worked at one of The Towers.  I think she got fine. One of the stories that is buried in the horror is how many people DIDN'T die on that day. The people on the floors below the impact zones generally got out.  In the 1993 bombing, it took almost 12 hours to totally evacuate the buildings. 

On that day, although we took a jolt, I thought things would get better.

I'm not sure it has.

We are too cynical with each other. We judge either other by their particular political stand at the moment. As a result, we are caustic, hypercritical, hypocritical, and downright mean in a lot of cases.

We need to pause. We need to catch our breath. We need to remember how we felt on that day.