Twelve years ago today I was not in New York. I was not in
Pennsylvania. And, no, I was not in D.C. It was one of the weeks that I was not
scheduled to travel for my job and instead, the meeting had come to me! I was
heading out to facilitate a meeting at a ski resort in the beautiful mountains
of Park City, Utah, an hour away from my house.
As soon as I got in the car I knew there was something odd
about the day and by the time I arrived at Deer Valley I was horrified; and I
hadn’t seen a single image.
Throughout the day, as I saw the video and photos of what
was happening, I met new levels of shock. I went to my hotel room to pray
during lunch. I stood next to a coworker from Nebraska as she learned that her
cousin had died at the Pentagon. And I watched helplessly as we tried to
arrange for five people to get halfway across the country when every airport
was shut down and we thought America was under attack.
But I don’t think it really hit me until 10 days later. I
was once again, scheduled to travel for work. I sat in an eerily quiet airport
lounge and watched the CNN feed cutout in the middle of a story about a plane
exploding over Queens. Within 90 seconds, cell phones throughout the once silent
airport starting ringing. I could hear my colleague’s wife on the phone begging
him not to get on the plane. But we did.
On that trip to Chicago I decided that if I was going to be
working, it would mean something. I was leaving my husband and small son at
home, and it wasn’t for anything I could say would change the world. I decided
to go back to school and find a career that would matter. Luckily—though I didn’t
think so at the time—the economic downturn that followed 9/11 cost me my job
and I was able to be a full-time student. I then went on to graduate school to
study how citizens and groups can effect change in policy or public opinion. For
me, that means something.
Each year when September 11th comes around, I
wonder if this will be the year that we let it slide by. I struggle with the
navel-gazing we engage in. But each year I come to the same realization: That
day changed my life, because it changed the world. It was not the first atrocity
committed on this planet, and God knows it won’t be the last. There have been
days that cost more lives, and days that cost more money. But it changed us
all. It brought death and destruction to our doorstep. It forced us to
acknowledge that we were not invincible and that our actions had consequences.
It taught us that the world will mourn with us and that for everyone who hates
us, there are hundreds who stand with us.
Those are important lessons. They were paid for with
people’s mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, friends and colleagues. And
we should hold them close, and learn from them. As I sit back and think about
what I learned from that day, I come to a few realizations (surely there are
hundreds of others, but these are what I can actually point to):
1. I have never again looked at a plane flying through the air
without a slight sense of foreboding.
2. I have never again looked at a fire fighter or police
officer or flight attendant without deep admiration.
3. I have never again deleted voicemail without a twinge of
concern that maybe I should save those words from my loved one.
4. And I have never looked at others, as I move through life,
without a sense that we are all in this together. You are not my enemy, and neither are they, because what damages one of us damages all of us. We are all experiencing THIS together and we will succeed or fail together.
