There is an image I keep on a shelf amongst photos of family, travel mementos, and other treasures from events in my life. Its a photograph taken by my niece Felicia when she was 13 — a lovely shot of jellyfish swimming in their tank in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The date stamp on that photo was 9-10-01.
The photograph memorializes a beautiful Sunday in early autumn in a world that had shape and structure — a continuum filled with family activities, a solid group of friends, thriving self-employment, and a fulfilling creative life. A day made vivid in my memory today because of what would come.
I woke up early that next morning, Sept. 11 just past 6:30 am, to the sound of neighbors talking outside. “Some bomb went off in New York City. It blew up the World Trade Center.”
I clicked on the remote. Black smoke was rising from one of the towers, and the muted sound of CBS News anchor Bryant Gumbel’s incredulous voice, giving a blow-by-blow account of the day-long horror unfolding in New York, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
For three days, I was glued to the television mesmerized, wondering whether I was asleep and still dreaming. And it was a dream. A dream filled day after day with non-stop images of violence. There were bodies falling to their deaths from the towers, the smoke from the explosion, and the broken airliner laid out like an autopsy on a field in Pennsylvania. Then there was the same tape run over and over again of jubilant people from a Muslim country burning flags and holding signs saying “Death to America.”