September 11 sneaks up on me every year. It's been fifteen years since that date seized to be just an ordinary one. It's our generation's equivalent of Pearl Harbor. If you are a New Yorker, or a former one like myself, and lived through that horrific time, the anniversary of 9/11 makes you wistful for those days before the attack and it makes you wonder what our present day would be like had it never happened. As a nation we remember those who perished on that fateful day. Every year we take a moment to commemorate the loss our nation endured. And every year, I wonder if I will ever be ready to live through that day again.
It took fifteen years, but this summer I was finally ready to venture out to that part of Manhattan. My husband and I took our oldest son to the 9/11 Museum and Memorial Park. My son was actually conceived a few months after 9/11 and was born a year later. He's only ever known what it's like to live in the aftermath of 9/11. I wanted him to get a better understanding of why that day was so important to my generation. The museum didn't disappoint. It was tasteful and restrained but powerful in the way it recounted the day's events. I walked through the various exhibits with a lump in my throat. I was in awe of how massive those towers were and could only imagine the terrifying inferno those planes created. But it was the wall of faces that finally got me. So many lives lost. Those 3,000 casualties were no longer just a number or a name on a slab of granite. They were real. With families and dreams of their own. It humanized the tragedy for my son who lingered at the interactive exhibit which allowed you to look at each person and find out a little something about them. It helped keep their memory alive in each of us.
After the museum, we walked around the 9/11 Memorial Park and went through the new World Trade Center PATH subway station and felt a sense of renewed hope. If you are like me and have been putting off visiting the 9/11 Museum and Memorial, don't. It is so worth the trip and a cathartic way to honor that time in our history. If you're still not up for it, you should at least check out the WTC PATH station hub designed by Santiago Calatrava. The main hall, called the Oculus, is a visual wonder.
