On a recent summer evening, my wife and I visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. As our fingers touched the names inscribed in the parapets of the walls, our sights followed the water flowing down into the open square pools, an edge of mist covering the angles at the bottom of the walls in the summer night. At the center of the pools water fell gently into a smaller square into the void. As we stood there, watching the water flow, we remembered the almost 3,000 people whose lives were taken by the actions of 19 young men who hijacked four planes to crash them into buildings and kill and hurt innocent civilians, not engaged in combat.
The size of the Memorial is evocative of the enormity of the loss. The design of the open structures, two large empty squares leading to more void, mark the absence of the lives taken. The water flowing gently into the pools speaks softly of lives cut too short, traveling where only the heart can know. The dark and empty square in the center of the structures speaks of the fragility of life, not just of the lives lost on that day but of all lives. One can imagine the entire globe suspended above that void, the full seven and a half billion people on this planet traveling together in our fragile earth.
As I prepare again this year to remember those victims whose lives were taken fifteen years ago, I realize how for me and for many others that day and those which followed defined much of how we would come to view the world, and our place in it. I remember the moment on that Tuesday, minutes before 9 am, as a colleague I was communicating with on the internet asked ‘what is happening? Go see CNN now’. I went and saw the repeated replay of the image of the first plane crash into the World Trade Center as the anchorman described with confusion what we were all watching. Minutes later, we saw the next plane crash into the second tower. I remember the numbing feeling, the disbelief, the questioning of who could possibly be doing what soon became evident was an intentional murderous act. I remember going to pick up my sons in school and bringing them home, only certain that I wanted to be close to those I loved in that moment of loss. Slowly, the awareness of the many lives taken sank in. It hit me with the same pain the loss of my mother had just a year earlier. It felt as senseless as my father’s death had many years before. In the aftermath of such tragic loss of lives we all knew these were our brothers and sisters, and we felt deeply the pain of their parents, spouses, children, siblings, and friends. Amidst the tragedy of that loss, we were all one.
This shared pain brought extraordinary levels of solidarity in communities and workplaces in the days and weeks that followed our shared loss. In my town, we all went out of our way to greet and check on each other on the street, in soccer fields, in supermarkets, as we picked up children in school, in houses of worship. At work, we all went out into an open court yard to mourn together as we held hands. We had services for those lost, and recognition for the courageous firefighters and policemen who attempted to rescue victims of the attacks. Amidst the mourning and the grief, we were all one.
My sons and their friends talked about the loss of lives as personal, as one of the victims was the uncle of children in our schools. I think even without such close proximity to the devastation of that day, the entire town would still have felt the loss of each of these lives as the loss of a loved one.
In the days following 9/11 I heard from many friends of colleagues in other countries, as they sent condolences and expressions of grief and solidarity. They too felt our pain, the loss their own, and reached out to let us know that we were all one and were not alone.
I’ve often wondered these fifteen years: Why did it take such pain and sadness to make us realize, at that dark time, that we are all one? And as I still grieve the loss of 2,977 beautiful lives, and feel for their children, their spouses, their parents, their siblings and friends, as I remember each moment of that senseless horror, and feel their absence in the water of the Memorial flowing gently to an unknown place, as I picture our planet suspended over that void, seven and a half billion of us traveling together, I remember especially how we honored them then with love for strangers and neighbors, with the deep certainty that we are all one.