Retrospective: An Article Written After Witnessing the Collapse of the WTC

Retrospective:
To mark the anniversary of 9/11.


In less than four weeks, the anniversary of 9/11 will settle in on us.
And I wanted to share with you this article I wrote for the Democracy Chronicle
at the time of the World Trade Center’s Collapse.

. I hope you will take away from this article written at a time when this incident of terrorism was so fresh, so badly understood, something inspirational and uplifting as was intended and that it helps bring into sharp focus the wellspring of courage that changed what might have been a route into a testament to man’s strength and courage.

Thank you.

Les Aaron
.

Written for Democracy Chronicle
At the World Trade Center, New York the day after.

Les Aaron

The World Trade Center

After the Unthinkable A Stream of Consciousness
Les Aaron

As the images continue to reverberate in my brain, the impulse is to ask “Is it over?” And I answer my own question: “I don’t think so.” Can it ever be over? Can this truth ever be put behind us? Who can say. Yet, the events of these past days have infiltrated our psyche. They have changed us in ways we do not fully comprehend.
In one defining moment of time, we have grown older. We have seen Evil. We have seen what man is capable of… And although we may think otherwise, we are yet to come to grips with the fragility of things…the transitory nature of materials that we had imbued with permanence. Steel and stone, we learn, are not permanent. Girders that reach to the heavens can be bent and twisted if the intent is there…. Unbreakable glass can be shattered if the force is sufficient. Even tall buildings can be brought down when attacked with enough jet fuel.
At times, I may awake believing that this was all a dream, an illusion. Then I realize that this was no illusion for more than 5,000 people for whom there can be no today and no bright tomorrows. And that realization will be with us long after the initial shock has worn off. It will shape us as we try to bravely survive this tortured landscape, this Bosch-like triptych of twisted steel and charred remains whose images will long endure even after the landscape has been cleared...
For many, this instant in time will be the defining moment in our lives. It is the loss of innocence; our emergence from the Garden of Eden into A hellish nightmare.
We must again relearn that man is essentially good and capable of noble acts… And yet, this lesson is communicated daily as we watch transfixed as hundreds, nay thousands of volunteers struggle valiantly to bring some semblance of order out of chaos… Trying to find survivors against all logical arguments… These icons who stand taller than our tallest buildings have given us reason to find hope in the worst of times....
It is perhaps too early to attempt to make any sense of this…To find reason in chaos and disorder. To understand why terror has been randomly dealt out to innocent people. At times, we may think that our feelings are compartmentalized… And then quite by chance something resurfaces to remind us of those stark moments when we learned the horrible truth—the truth that sometimes things make no sense…but they intrude anyway And change us in fundamental ways we don’t always understand
A friend tells you a story. You read a piece in the paper. Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody. You come across a word or two that for some strange reason transports you back to the flitting images that do not immediately connect. The animation-like visuals of the jetliner crashing into the World Trade Center, repeated over and over again in numbing sequences so explicit and yet so unreal, a depiction of events that transfixed us and changed our perceptions of time and reality forever. .

And perhaps the way it should be. Attempting to fit our raw feelings into tight little boxes won’t cleanse our pain.. We are not built that way. . We must learn to live with these darkened recollections. It will be the scar tissue we carry with us. That which differentiates us from others. And we will carry these scars with us to remind us that we are now somehow different…somehow older if not wiser.
. Now, I sit at my desk and think how the world has been transformed since the WTC horror... I know that this is the worst thing that has ever happened to my New York. All those wasted lives. To what end? For what possible purpose? .. To satisfy some brain-washed, blind-sided fanatics who don't even understand their own Koran, a Koran that places a value on innocent lives...These pathetic wastrels who traded lives and hopes and aspirations of the innocent for some promised Paradise….
Unthinkable!
My thoughts are riveted on numbers. How meaningless seems the number 5,000 when it is said to stand for lives. And the exact totals are unknown. For the pyre that is the Trade Towers will not give up its ghastly remains without a struggle…
For me, anything more than one is difficult if not impossible to comprehend. There is a need to put a human face on each one of these numbers to get a feeling for what has taken place. And it does not really help to read the little paragraphs about each of these people who were trying to simply live out their lives with dignity. To see them end on such swift wings with no provocation brings me little solace.
. Their one paragraph biographies tell me that they were sportsman, travelers, adventurers, extroverts, introverts, readers, enthusiasts of all kinds, people with families, people without families There were husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers. There were average people doing average jobs on what seemed an average day. They all seemed too young to have composed final chapters.
They encompassed all the qualities that so many of us hold dear. All those lives regrettably cut off at mid-stream. How hard and how difficult to bear. I read these little snippets and it makes me want to cry. I don't know whether it is the sadness all this engenders or the anger I feel welling up in me. It's hard to know. I am not a person who consciously lives with anger. It is something I try to keep at arms length. Yet, this needless loss of life makes me want to lash out, to somehow seek retribution...to do what little I can to make their lives count for something more....
But the pain simply does not end there. And I know it. I recognize, too, that even though this wanton loss is staggering beyond imagination that is not all of it. There is another dimension. There are connections that go on and on. Each of these people is part of a complex web of relationships that touches each and every one that they knew.
It is the Six Degrees of Separation concept taken to the extreme. It is the butterfly's wings in the apt Zen metaphor. We are all affected. We are all poorer for their loss. And we must all go through the process of trying to rebuild our lives as best we can.
I am sure that the stories by now are legion. That everyone you ask has a story. It simply demonstrates how interconnected all of our lives are perhaps in ways we didn't even understand until something like this happens to bring it all into sharp focus.
Nor will it end there. It is like a wound that will not heal. Every day, we hear a new story. And every day, there is another hero born. And remarkably, there is a coming together. People joining with people in tributes of thoughtfulness that are being repeated all over the City and in places outside the City for truly we are all changed by what happened.
. One thing is for sure, we will emerge with a whole new set of heroes. Not athletes who earn millions to dump a ball in a hoop and then sell their sweat. No, heroes who tried to help others sometimes giving their own lives in the process. Or the countless firefighters and police officers and emergency workers who toiled anonymously through the rubble with the hope off finding just one survivor. These people who have given everything they can give and ask nothing in return have become our new heroes. And well they should be.
Too often, in recent days, I have heard the bagpipers’ dirge and it brings back thoughts of the fragility of human life. Their haunting sound tells me that we are perishable. That nothing is guaranteed in life. I think it reminds others, too, that perhaps it is a time to look deep into ourselves. To question our priorities to see whether they hold up in the reflected light of what has happened. Have we really considered how we allocate the time we have been allotted? Have we taken the time to smell the roses? In the pursuit of economic gain, have we perhaps overlooked our commitment to family, friends, community?
Perhaps it is too early to consider how exactly things will change but for the first time in a long time it seems that people are coming together more… there is more sharing…..and more concern for one another. . People seem to be saying I will be here for you. I feel your pain. You are not alone.
I see it in the shared response of people holding people in their arms. I see it in the tears of total strangers that mix together. I see it in the newly formed bonds that were not there a day or two before. And. I see it the faces of those affected. One hundred times one hundred and more.
And for New York, well, what can one say. It is hard for me to think of New York as simply a place. For me, it has always been a living and breathing organism that I find myself a part of and cannot see myself separated from. It’s part of my DNA. I have been there since I had memory. My earliest recollections were as a child playing on the streets of Harlem where I lived. I have taken so much from the City. It has been my oxygen. It has helped form me. It has given me strength... It has taught me most of what I know. And it taught me the meaning of courage in the face of adversity. And it has shared those lessons with many.

Today, I look at how my New York and I see it wounded, vulnerable. . But I also know that New York is more than just steel and concrete. More than just rubble or twisted girders. . My New York will come back. . It will rise up again like it has before. . Like a phoenix rising from the ashes. New York will survive. Of that, I am sure.
And for the rest of us?
Out of all of this, I think we will manage to find some good to comfort the living. And there will be changes. Changes in the way we think about each other. Changes in the way we look at time and its impact upon our lives. Nor can we ever see things quite the same way again. We will never believe that we are insulated against the bad things that inhabit the world…And we will re-educate ourselves as to what's really important.
As we rebuild, as we go about the lengthy process of finding ourselves and examining our relationships to everything that has happened, we as New Yorkers will discover things about ourselves that we did not know. We will learn to place a higher value on our new friends from near and afar. We will look to our newly framed idols as examples of all that we can be and, ultimately, we will come out of this not only inspired but stronger than before. And that should ring out as a message to all those who would try to vanquish us. New Yorkers, and Americans, stand together and we stand tall!.Les Aaron