Lori wrote, and Anne responded: "> As for me, I'll be turning the TV off that day. Won't > you join me? > Hi Lori. I think that turning off our tv sets for that one day would be a wonderful tribute to the victims. I'll join you!"
Anne and Lori, I missed the original post somehow, so I'm not sure what the significance of Sept. 11, 2003 is. But I know that, on Sept. 11, *2002*--which is, incredibly, only a little more than a month away, I'm going to be a contrarian on this one. I *will* be watching my TV that day to pick up any tributes or anniversary observances of quality on that day, and also, as a reflection of the extent that TV was my lifeline on Sept. 11, 2001. I first got word that a plane had crashed into one of the Towers of the World Trade Center upon receiving a news bulletin while on-line. For several hours thereafter, I was glued to my television screen at home as first one tower, then the other, collapsed to the ground with a sickening thud. I remember that day being one of frantic attempted phone calls and e-mails, as my family determined that a cousin who is a flight attendant (and indeed, sometimes worked Flight 11 from Boston to LA) was not on Flight 11 on that particular day, and then that her mother, who had been scheduled to continue her travels around the country that morning after visiting that cousin in Boston, was not a passenger on either of the downed flights out of the city. We felt as though we'd dodged a double bullet. I remember short, terse phone messages to my workplace (I still wasn't there; I got them later) from my partner, who grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island, NY, as, one by one, all his family members who remained in the area signed in as present and accounted for. And I remember my quick decision to drive out to my mother's birthday celebration 600 miles away, two short days later. I had been scheduled to fly, which was now an impossibility, with all domestic and international flights grounded. No one knew, of course, whether there would be an additional attack, or if there were, by what means it might be carried out. My mother herself ordered me to stay home, as only a mother can do with an adult child. But the attacks impressed upon me, as they did for so many, the importance of family and friends, and of not putting off until tomorrow what should be done today. My mother suffers from a serious chronic illness which will eventually be terminal. She will have only a limited number of birthdays left. I got into my car and drove off. And I will always remember that eerie journey across the American heartland, two days after the country was attacked, for the first time in memory for many. The electronic "God Bless America" signs above the toll booths around Chicago. Total strangers at rest stops being kinder to one another than they perhaps ordinarily would have. The palpable shock and dismay on the faces of other travelers; the occasional tears. And an old Simon and Garfunkle song with the chorus, "we've all come to look for America," at a time when I was on the road, and none of us were quite sure exactly where America was heading, or how much of it was left. What will I do on Sept. 11 this year? I'll turn on my TV. But I'll also put aside ten minutes, half an hour, an hour of quiet--however long it takes--to think of and pray for all those who lost their lives on that terrible day a year before to the day, and all those directly affected by the tragedy. To some large extent, that includes all of us. And just maybe, I'll get into my car and drive somewhere, anywhere. I'll remember what was lost. And I'll celebrate all the wonderful people and spirit and indicators of our national life together that still remain. Mary P.
