TO NEVER FORGET

Townhall.com ^ | 11 September 2008 | Andrew Roman

[andrew roman]

NEVER FORGET Posted by Andrew Roman on Thursday, September 11, 2008 1:20:12 AM

Two days ago, I posted an opinion piece here called, “September 11th – The Reason.” It was, I felt, an important article to write – one that I had hoped would tap into some of the profoundly deep emotions that still fester in me (and, as I have come to discover, so many others) surrounding the terrorist attacks that took place seven years ago today. Many of you were kind of enough to take a few moments to read it, and I am most appreciative. In it, I endeavored to articulate what is a lingering frustration for me – something that still gnaws at me, particularly because we are a nation still at war. I fear being slightly redundant here, but I wish to create the foundational premise of this particular commentary, so if I may quote two very relevant sentences from that article:

The sights and sounds of September 11th - save for the occasional scene of the burning towers in a random news story - are almost entirely tucked away from the American public’s senses by purveyors of news and information, in a way that’s almost conspiratorial. The result is that Americans in large numbers have almost forgotten how it felt on that morning to witness the murder and destruction that unfolded before our eyes, on live television.

With that sentiment re-established, I decided it would be appropriate today to share something that I wrote just after midnight on September 13, 2001 – not quite two days after the attacks. I remember sitting in my living room in Fort Wayne, Indiana (where I was working in radio at the time) with the television on, staring at what would become an all-too familiar scene at Ground Zero – the ominous rising smoke from the rubble wafting into the black skies over Manhattan, my eyes tearing up for the millionth time in two days, pen in hand, trying to find the words.

I actually found this piece in an old folder in a nearly forgotten box of old writings in a corner of the closet I all but neglect these days. It is a small carton filled mostly with newspapers I collected that day and in the days following the attacks. I came across this stashed between the Post and Times, scrawled out on two sheets of college ruled loose-leaf paper. Reading it now, there is probably much more that should have been said at the time - things I have more than sufficiently expressed in the seven years since. This is my little snapshot in time, precisely as it was, a mere thrity-nine hours after the first plane struck the North Tower and changed the world forever:

What can I say that hasn’t already been expressed more eloquently than I could ever hope to? What words can I write that could even begin to capture with any degree of accuracy how I’m feeling now? I could parade all the typical "buzz" words I’ve been hearing all over the media during the last few days: shock, devastation, horrific, and so on . . . . but it just doesn’t seem to come close. They don’t seem to fit. Then again, what does anymore? Everything’s been twisted into a strange new reality, a frightening new world. I’ve tried to sit down and scribble something – anything – in the wake of these most tragic events, but I haven’t been able to.

Two days after the twin towers of the WorldTradeCenter came crumbling down as the result of the most brutal terrorist attack the world has ever known, I still cannot believe the images that still resonate vividly in my mind’s eye. My country has been violated in the most brutal way I can imagine, my city has been horrifically scarred, the lives of thousands and thousands of innocent people have been stolen from the face of this world for reasons that can never come close to justifying such cataclysmic waste.

I am only one small speck in a sea of millions – perhaps billions – on this blue ball who feel the outrage, the pain, the sorrow of this most catastrophic attack upon my country and our way of live – but in many ways, I feel isolated and alone – raped and beaten. I feel stripped of my security and confidence. I feel violated.

I bleed and I hurt for those whose lives have been ripped apart in a way I never thought I was capable of. I mourn, as I never thought I could mourn for anyone. I still shudder in stunned horror at the vision of New York’s most recognizable icons buckling and crumbling like some computer-generated special effect in a Hollywood film.

As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, the great skyline of Manhattan – the most beautiful and breathtaking manmade spectacle on this earth – was an everyday fixture in my life. As one might look out their window and see their mailbox or their front lawn, so was the sight of ManhattanIsland with its concrete temples and sky-kissing monuments just a short train ride away. I was fascinated with Manhattan’s skyline as a child. I loved to draw the skyline of the city – from the tip of Battery Park, up through the TwinTowers and the financial district, up to midtown and the EmpireState building. I even won a contest once – in the second grade, I think it was – with my rendition of Manhattan’s skyline hanging in the lobby of a bank somewhere in Brooklyn.

Those geometrically enticing images STILL hold a vivid place setting at my mind’s table.

They always will.

Yet, today, I cry.

They’ve taken away two of those images that have meant so much to me and stood for so much to many. It will take a long time for me to fully comprehend that the TwinTowers of New York City no longer stand – today existing only in 150 thousand tons of rubble in the streets of lower Manhattan and in soon-to-be sold out New York City post cards in gift shops everywhere. I waver violently between feelings of a deep sadness as I have never known and a complete sense of anger at the most horrific events I have ever witnessed.

I still cry.

However, the greatest tragedy of this most dark of darkest moment is the disastrous and monumental loss of innocent life.

It will exist in the face of every motherless child. It will be heard in the cry of every son or daughter who calls for the touch of a father who hasn’t come home. It will smolder in the shattered hearts of the parents who have lived to see the tragic end of a child’s life. It is in the souls of the families that have been forever scarred by all of this unspeakable and incomprehensible waste.

I’ve wanted to write something about all of this, fancying myself a bit of a writer, an artist maybe, but I’ve been faced with nothing but the stark whiteness of the blank page staring back at me and the turbulence of my emotions. I have found it so difficult to express in words everything that boils in me. I’m sure that my elementary ramblings here have served no purpose in the grand scheme of things, other than to appease somewhat the burning inside of me to do something. . .anything. Perhaps it’s a bit self-serving, maybe a touch therapeutic.

Certainly, I wish I could be there in New York City right now, the only place on this earth I can ever call home, the only place that has ever felt like home, there among the thousands of heroes who are perilously sacrificing their own lives to try and save the lives of fellow human beings. It is a testament to the human condition and spirit to see the resiliency of these people – the true beauty of the species – these tireless citizens acting as they are, coming together as never before.

It is eerily magnificent to see.

There is nowhere else I should be now. In my heart, I am there.

Perhaps, I don’t feel so alone anymore.

God Bless the victims, the heroes, the families and the United States of America.

Andrew Roman, Brooklyn, NY