Purposefully Untitled

I have mixed feelings about the annual 9/11 tributes. 

This morning Matt’s alarm went off and Toby Keith’s "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" played. We’ll put a boot in their ass, it’s the American Way, those were the first words in my ears this morning, and I was reminded that it is September 11th. As I do every year, (as I’m sure most Americans do every year on this date) I thought back to my morning fourteen years ago.

Then, I was living at my parent’s house while escrow closed on my condo. I had finished my shower and was heading down the hallway clad in a bathrobe and towel on my head, when my mother burst through the front door with a worried expression on her face. “Turn on the tv.” she said.  She saw the first plane hit the tower while working out at the gym. So we turned on the tv and watched all the coverage until I had to leave it behind for work. I was teaching Kindergarten, so I spent that day being cheery and pretending like nothing was wrong. It was a weird sort of blessing to be teaching Kindergarten that day. 

Four days later, I was still latched onto the television, watching the tributes, hearing the stories. And then…..I’ll never forget. I was in my room, sitting on the floor three feet from the television and crying when my mom walked in and said, “Turn it off, Tacy. It didn’t happen to you.”

What the hell did she mean, it didn’t happen to me? It happened to every American, didn’t it? But if I was being completely honest with myself, I knew she was right. I knew no one who had died. I lived three thousand miles away, had never set foot in the state of New York, had never seen the Statue of Liberty close up or the World Trade Center. I had purposefully been seeking out the sadness and grief. I wanted to tap into that collective mourning and outrage that the news media fed us by watching the stories of survival, listening to the sadness of the people who lost their friends and family. I wanted to make their stories my story, so that I could feel more connected to this tragedy. It was morbid, and in the weeks that followed, I saw that I wasn’t the only one doing it. I bet that you were probably doing it too. You just didn’t happen to be living with a therapist who could call you out on your melancholic behavior. 

As the months rolled on and our nation’s patriotism reached a fever pitch, as songs were written like the one I heard this morning, my mom’s words kept ringing in my ears. I know, I know, the intention is to commemorate and memorialize. That’s important, I think.  It’s also necessary. But I believe there’s a fine line between memorializing the sacrifice and loss of others and turning a tragedy into something somewhat pretty for ourselves. 

When Saddam Hussein was killed, it was announced at a music festival out here. The crowd lost their minds cheering, and I thought about what a weird reaction that was. I mean, when a murderer is sentenced for his/her crimes, you never see the family members jubilant about it.  They are somber. They are quiet. They know the punishment doesn’t do a thing to fix their loss. Perhaps they feel a quiet gladness or relief, but I have never seen an example of a family who is jubilant.  What does it say about our understanding of this situation if we are so joyful at the death of this person, who, yes, is gladly dead, but whose evil still goes on and on affecting the lives of families and friends who lost loved ones fourteen years ago today? 

Our country really knows so little about war and terror on our own soil.  9/11 was just a taste of that. I don’t see Syrian refuges memorializing their losses with songs written in the spirit of revenge or pictures of lost skylines. At least not for a long, long time. When we remember today the lives lost fourteen years ago, please remember it in the spirit of respect it deserves.   It’s not about posting cool pictures with flags or “I <3 New York” stickers on your wall.  It’s not a cute Facebook game. Watch the documentaries if you must, feel all the feels.  Remember those lost with the kind of respect you would want others to show you, had you lost a family member. And then move on with your life, because, you know

…it didn’t happen to you.