A look at how we – as liberals and as Americans – deal with 9-11, after the jump ….
Like you, I was horrified by the events of September 11, 2001 …. yet one of the silver linings was the way Americans rallied together: donating blood, helping our (unionized, too) police and fire crews, and seeing even New York City – which many Americans loathe – hailed, with the citizens of Charleston, South Carolina buying a fire truck to replace one given to them by the NYFD … one hundred thirty-four years earlier.
The sportswriter Bob Ryan once posited that he was unsure how his generation would handle a major crisis (as well as the so-called Greatest Generation, he wondered)? He felt that the response to 9-11 was proof they could do so. And we in New England felt that kinship a dozen years later: when the 2013 Boston Marathon brought nationwide messages of solidarity. I think the entire nation cheered that Friday night when the final suspect was apprehended … without a shot being fired.
Yet …. and you sensed there was a ‘yet‘, didn’t you …. it took a long time for me to recover. Not from the bombing by foreign nationals, nor the loss of human life …. but from the beating we took from our fellow citizens who reside on Planet Starboard. Our courage, patriotism, loyalty (and for some of us, our masculinity) was found wanting … by elected officials and unelected authoritarian followers who saw an opportunity and exploited it. The pride in “not conforming” they exhibit today …… was missing in the aftermath of 9-11, and the Islamophobia that resulted – especially after Barack Obama took office – is quite depressing. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of all this.
When George W. Bush began to sink in the polls, it helped … as did the election of a new president and the passage of time. Yet even having President Obama oversee the national observances of the 10th anniversary of this tragedy wasn’t enough to overcome the tension I felt … I kept wishing the day would end. Horrible feeling to have, huh?
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One way I try not to let our opponents take ownership of this day is to reprise the story of a second cousin: the man you see here, Terry Farrell …..
…. whose story can be read in full at this link as I have written about him before. But in brief:
His Rescue Company 4 was one of the first on the scene that awful day, was lost in the South Tower (WTC-2) and his family considered themselves lucky his body was found six weeks later.
But it turned out that………..no, the story didn’t end here. For he did something else that – from this vantage point – was even more heroic. Terry might well have said about his final act on earth, “Hey, I volunteered for that unit, I always knew what could happen and that’s what they paid me for.” So what was his other act?
He volunteered to become a bone marrow donor – which he had no obligation to do – and a woman is now 25 years old this year as a result. What’s more, even his own family did not know that he had undergone the procedure (after being identified as a match) until they saw his name on TV – in the 1990’s – as one whose act had saved a life.
In fact, back in 1994 when she was 6 years old, Chantyl Peterson and her family travelled to New York from Nevada to meet her donor. And……hold on to your hats……..they had lunch…..on the 87th floor of……the World Trade Center.
They met again in 1999 and then, during the time when Terry was still listed as “missing”, Chantyl told her mother that if he was found alive that “I’ll tell him not to ever get hurt again.”
When it turned out to be otherwise, her father told her the news … and so she made a third trip in October of 2001 to read a prayer at his funeral as a 13 year-old.
And, to me, that’s the even-more-important message from his life: volunteer to become a bone-marrow blood donor. It’s easy; you just need to contact these folks for instructions.
With that: I want to turn-over this diary to you, dear readers. Specifically:
a) Did that day directly affect you or your family?
b) Was there a moment when the right-wing wave was too much for you to bear?
c) And most importantly: how do you deal with this day, thirteen years-on?
Some contemplative music while you respond: from the saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, with his version of Light at the Edge of the World by Piero Piccioni.
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