Remembering 9/11
I started out writing a post on Instagram about 9/11/01 today and when I went to submit, I was told it was far too long for the space they provided, so I decided to put that post here. It felt good to write it out and share my thoughts and feeling about a day that changed so many lives in an instant. I continue to think about and pray for all the people who lost their lives, their relatives and friends, and to the first responders that, like many days in their daily lives, rushed towards all the chaos, danger and death, to try to help. God Bless them all.
I remember it so vividly….when the second plane hit, I knew immediately what that meant. It meant that everything had changed.
I was living in Western Massachusetts and was traveling into New York City 1-2 times a week for work. At the time, I was putting out projects with various Indigenous Elders that I would meet (along with my good friend and former mentor, Harvey Arden), in the form of multi-media enriched websites. The software that my friend had developed and used for our projects were also used to help commercial real estate companies (which also happened to pay the bills, most months). Most of the clients and properties we worked with were in the heart of NYC, and during each trip I got to know the City a little better.
I drove by the towers often on the way to our weekly meetings in the city. I always remember looking up at them. I had seen them in movies and in the famous skyline pics of NYC. Now, I knew people who worked there or went to meetings there. I had friends whose parents worked there. The Twin Towers, like the city itself, was becoming more familiar each trip, even though it wasn’t my home. I felt the spirit of NYC, but I will never pretend it was my own. I was a Visitor. But I visited enough to get a good idea of the City. I was working there, often. I just happened to not have any meetings in the City that week, which was rare.
I had lot of friends that lost family members, friends and associates that day. I remember soon after the second plane strike, the telephone lines were all jacked up and it was hard to get ahold of people we knew, to find out if they were okay. One of my friends spent all day thinking his father was gone. His dad was at work that day. He was in one of the towers, on a lower level floor. He tried calling his dad. But his phone wouldn’t work.
All day long he sat, watching the replays of the towers collapsing, people jumping to their quick deaths instead of slowly burning in the flames, or eventually being crushed as the towers fell. He had come to the realization that his dad was under that pile of rubble when the towers fell. There was maybe a sliver of hope that he might be rescued, because you hold on to a sliver when the reality says there is none, because the truth is too much. It was just too soon to swallow the truth that his dad would not come home. It was too soon to deal with the shock of the events that were unfolding, yet alone deal with your dad being gone, forever. My friend couldn't let his mom give into the the thought that she was a widow, now. He couldn't let himself imagine what he would tell all his other family members. Now, imagine what my friend and his family must have felt when they looked up to see their dad walking up the front doorstep, later that evening. He had made it out. Somehow. He had found his way home. He was one of the lucky ones.
Now imagine all those that stared out their own front doorsteps, holding on to a sliver of hope, for days on end, but never saw their mother, father, son, daughter, brother or sister, walking up those steps, to come home, safely. Try to imagine...
That day was a tangled ball of confusion, chaos and sadness. It was terror. It was anger. It was hopelessness. It was hopefulness. It was so many things to so many different people, all at once. It was a loss that I hadn’t known in my lifetime. It was all just unimaginable...until it was our reality.
I heard a quote once that struck me, and I apologize for not recalling where I heard it. I’ll just paraphrase:
“I would never want to go through another 9/11 again. But I’d do anything for another 9/12...."
The person went on to explain what they meant - that the country somehow united that next day like they had never seen before. It didn’t matter where you were from, what side of the political table you sat on, who you loved, or any of that. There was a unity that existed that brought us closer together, even if for a short time. You saw the best of people. You saw folks wanting to do anything help, to donate, to be a part of some type of healing, if that was even possible. You saw heroes and warriors do all they could to try to save just one more life. You saw first responders working until exhaustion took over, and then they'd throw that exhaustions aside, and work and dig harder than ever before....because maybe, just maybe, they could find someone trapped and save them. Or at the very worst, maybe they would find those that perished, and give their families and answer and a body to bury. Maybe that would provide some....closure? You saw sacrifice. You saw people giving and wanting to come together to help. You saw something that hadn't been seen in a long time. It took that level of devastation and terror to bring together that level of unity. It was there for a while. I don't know how long. It eventually faded away. I see slivers of it, still...sometimes.
Today, I remember 9/11/01 like it was just the other day. All the feeds online of the planes hitting, the voicemails left from loved ones, the people jumping to their deaths from the towers....it's all so much, and it takes me back to that day. It's all still so vivid.
I hope we never face a day like that again. I pray we can all come together again, to put aside our differences for something bigger than our own selves, like we did in the aftermath of the chaos and destruction that happened on 9/11. I saw some of the best of humanity in the days that followed the tragedy. I saw a unity that made me proud to be an American. I don't know if our country had rallied together like that since WWII, perhaps. That was well before my time, so it's hard to say. But in my lifetime, that was a pivotal moment, on both ends of the spectrum. I was devastated. I was hopeful. I was empty. And I was overfilled with it all.
I won't ever forget that day, the people we lost, and those that sacrificed everything then, and those that still do to this day.
~George Blitch
9/11/23
I was living in Western Massachusetts and was traveling into New York City 1-2 times a week for work. At the time, I was putting out projects with various Indigenous Elders that I would meet (along with my good friend and former mentor, Harvey Arden), in the form of multi-media enriched websites. The software that my friend had developed and used for our projects were also used to help commercial real estate companies (which also happened to pay the bills, most months). Most of the clients and properties we worked with were in the heart of NYC, and during each trip I got to know the City a little better.
I drove by the towers often on the way to our weekly meetings in the city. I always remember looking up at them. I had seen them in movies and in the famous skyline pics of NYC. Now, I knew people who worked there or went to meetings there. I had friends whose parents worked there. The Twin Towers, like the city itself, was becoming more familiar each trip, even though it wasn’t my home. I felt the spirit of NYC, but I will never pretend it was my own. I was a Visitor. But I visited enough to get a good idea of the City. I was working there, often. I just happened to not have any meetings in the City that week, which was rare.
I had lot of friends that lost family members, friends and associates that day. I remember soon after the second plane strike, the telephone lines were all jacked up and it was hard to get ahold of people we knew, to find out if they were okay. One of my friends spent all day thinking his father was gone. His dad was at work that day. He was in one of the towers, on a lower level floor. He tried calling his dad. But his phone wouldn’t work.
All day long he sat, watching the replays of the towers collapsing, people jumping to their quick deaths instead of slowly burning in the flames, or eventually being crushed as the towers fell. He had come to the realization that his dad was under that pile of rubble when the towers fell. There was maybe a sliver of hope that he might be rescued, because you hold on to a sliver when the reality says there is none, because the truth is too much. It was just too soon to swallow the truth that his dad would not come home. It was too soon to deal with the shock of the events that were unfolding, yet alone deal with your dad being gone, forever. My friend couldn't let his mom give into the the thought that she was a widow, now. He couldn't let himself imagine what he would tell all his other family members. Now, imagine what my friend and his family must have felt when they looked up to see their dad walking up the front doorstep, later that evening. He had made it out. Somehow. He had found his way home. He was one of the lucky ones.
Now imagine all those that stared out their own front doorsteps, holding on to a sliver of hope, for days on end, but never saw their mother, father, son, daughter, brother or sister, walking up those steps, to come home, safely. Try to imagine...
That day was a tangled ball of confusion, chaos and sadness. It was terror. It was anger. It was hopelessness. It was hopefulness. It was so many things to so many different people, all at once. It was a loss that I hadn’t known in my lifetime. It was all just unimaginable...until it was our reality.
I heard a quote once that struck me, and I apologize for not recalling where I heard it. I’ll just paraphrase:
“I would never want to go through another 9/11 again. But I’d do anything for another 9/12...."
The person went on to explain what they meant - that the country somehow united that next day like they had never seen before. It didn’t matter where you were from, what side of the political table you sat on, who you loved, or any of that. There was a unity that existed that brought us closer together, even if for a short time. You saw the best of people. You saw folks wanting to do anything help, to donate, to be a part of some type of healing, if that was even possible. You saw heroes and warriors do all they could to try to save just one more life. You saw first responders working until exhaustion took over, and then they'd throw that exhaustions aside, and work and dig harder than ever before....because maybe, just maybe, they could find someone trapped and save them. Or at the very worst, maybe they would find those that perished, and give their families and answer and a body to bury. Maybe that would provide some....closure? You saw sacrifice. You saw people giving and wanting to come together to help. You saw something that hadn't been seen in a long time. It took that level of devastation and terror to bring together that level of unity. It was there for a while. I don't know how long. It eventually faded away. I see slivers of it, still...sometimes.
Today, I remember 9/11/01 like it was just the other day. All the feeds online of the planes hitting, the voicemails left from loved ones, the people jumping to their deaths from the towers....it's all so much, and it takes me back to that day. It's all still so vivid.
I hope we never face a day like that again. I pray we can all come together again, to put aside our differences for something bigger than our own selves, like we did in the aftermath of the chaos and destruction that happened on 9/11. I saw some of the best of humanity in the days that followed the tragedy. I saw a unity that made me proud to be an American. I don't know if our country had rallied together like that since WWII, perhaps. That was well before my time, so it's hard to say. But in my lifetime, that was a pivotal moment, on both ends of the spectrum. I was devastated. I was hopeful. I was empty. And I was overfilled with it all.
I won't ever forget that day, the people we lost, and those that sacrificed everything then, and those that still do to this day.
~George Blitch
9/11/23