My ten year old son just asked me what he was doing when I first heard of the horrors of 9/11. I reminded him he was napping since he was only six months old. Interestingly enough, I had the TV on for just a moment, rare for a weekday afternoon. I turned it on to watch the second plane hit live.
A short while later I was picking up the girls from school. British and American parents alike were desperately trying to piece together what was happening. All of our spouses were being evacuated from their offices in London as no one knew what might happen next.
My house phone rang for hours as relatives were using me as a conduit. They could not make phone calls from the east coast to elsewhere in the States but they were able to make international calls. I hail from Montclair, NJ, a town populated by many who work in lower Manhattan. I knew instinctively that friends were lost. It would be several days before I knew how many.
British friends dropped by all of the next day to check that my family was OK. It was not something they wanted to ask on the phone.
Three days later I boarded a plane to Italy as one of my closest friends lives there and she had not yet met the baby. We attended Mass on Sunday and I watched the worshippers cry as the priest dedicated his homily to the victims. I understand enough Italian to know that his sympathy was mixed with fear. Fear that if America were taken down, so went all of Europe.
Ten years later the world watched as we commemorated the day. I tried to stay away, but I was transfixed this morning as every name was read. Though clergy were excluded, two Presidents, a mayor, a governor and countless family members spoke of God’s promise to carry us forward.
Whilst most of the world continue to pay homage to the ruins of their past, we took an area of immense destruction and rebuilt something beautiful, paying homage to a city moving forward against all odds.
America lost its innocence ten years ago and today we live in a very uncertain coming of age. Tomorrow, then, holds the promise of a country all grown up.