Yesterday, I enjoyed spending with my brother, his girlfriend, and her mother who’s visiting from Denver. We all share a love of musicals, so we found discount tickets to If/Then, which ended up being amazing (I’ve seen her performances from Rent, Wicked, The Wild Party, and they’ve all consistently blown me away).
From there, we took a memorable trip to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. We first stopped at the memorial: two box-shaped caverns plummeting down into an expansive shallow pool where the twin towers used to stand. A steady stream of water falls from the top of the installation curving in with clear and smooth lines. On the outermost edges of the installations are the names of the victims from the attacks. What moved me was someone from the memorial staff was assigned to place a flower on inscribed victims’ names on the day of their birthday. I saw two white flowers particularly on the memorial yesterday.
Inside, we walk through the infrastructure of what used to be the twin towers. Bent rusting metal rafters hung low through the building almost like new-age art installations. We observed about 4 hours of audio, video, photography, and street-belongings. Everything people left behind in the white dusty rubble, all of their phone calls to loved ones, the news reports that followed, it all blew me away.
I was only 10 years old when the World Trade Towers got hit. My school system decided not to tell students why we were being pulled out of school at 9:30 in the morning, instead leaving that task to our parents. I was so excited to be let out of school, and wasn’t sure why everyone was so angry, sad, and confused. One girl in particular was pulled out of my class before the rest of us. Once again, we weren’t sure why this was happening, or what was going on.
Looking back at the event now, I realize 3,000 lives were lost that day, 65,000 jobs and 20,000 residents were driven out of the area. The people of New York City would never be the same, and some wondered if the community could make it through the toughest moments in rebuilding what had been lost of the community. It reminds me of Mother Teresa’s poem, Anyway:
“People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.”
After the memorial, my friends and family went to a jazz bar in the West Village. As we sat in our cozy booth in the midst of the enormous crowd, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful that New York wasn’t finished telling the story of its triumph. We were just beginning, and sitting there listening to the music of New York with a crowd of intimate strangers, I knew I belonged in this city.
You can get tickets to the Museum here: http://www.911memorial.org/node/1031371
