Today is just a sad day. There is no other way to describe it. I was not going to write anything today. But watching all the tributes on TV really hit home.
Five years ago, I was sitting in a conference room at Lycos in Waltham, MA about to embark on a full day’s worth of mind-numbingly boring training on an irrelevant subject I can not for the life of me remember. Soon after the session started, the instructor came in and informed the class that the US was under attack. We all went into another conference room and watched the day unfold in stunning reality.
I did not want to be at work. I went home to be with my wife and my then 2 month old daughter Rebecca. I sat in front of the TV and just stared in stunned disbelief. The rest of the week and the rest of the year was just a blur, a surreal and sobering time.
To this day, it still so hard to comprehend. The images looked like they were from a bad terror movie. But they weren’t. I can not begin to imagine what it was like that day in Lower Manhattan. Five years later, I now work in Lower Manhattan, about 200 yards from the big hole in the ground that is “Ground Zero”. People I work with were there that day. I don’t mention it unless they bring it up. And even then, its awkward. I walk past “Ground Zero” every day as I go to and from work, and do my best not to dwell on what happened at that site. Because when I do, it is just too overwhelming. And I did not even lose a close relative, a close friend, or a loved one.
I don’t know what it was, what it is, like to lose a loved one in such a horrid manner. I don’t know what its like to have to rebuild your life after such loss. All I can do is provide my support and encouragement to those that were directly impacted by that day. Their strength is humbling.
One day, I hope soon, the idiot politicians will figure out what to build at that site, and maybe, just maybe, the collective “we” will be able to have some minor sense of symbolic closure.
Today is a sad day.