The 9/11 Conundrum...

And what do you do on day 366? Today, on September 11, 2002, I did not turn on a TV. I did not participate in ceremonies. I did not listen to lists of names. After 365 days of replaying events, I figure there has got to be something more. I did go to the Red Cross to donate today, as I do all year - so that's nothing new. Got a call in the morning that blood was low due to two stabbings and a liver transplant. The donation lines were a lot shorter than last year. In fact they have been short for most of 2002, as have been the blood supplies. Hmm. I guess needles are still as scary as they were on September 10, 2001… On Saturday, November 17, 2001 I visited lower Manhattan. I had driven from Tennessee to Staten Island to crash with an old friend while I attended a weeklong training course in New Jersey. At weeks end I took a deep breath, boarded the Staten Island Ferry and finally looked toward the new NYC skyline. My old friend still has not been to the crash site. That is how most of my NYC friends respond when asked - they haven't been there, and they have no desire to go. But I went. Because I grew up 240 miles away, in upstate NY, Manhattan was always a special place to visit; and the rush of adrenaline I felt at age 7 upon first seeing the skyline still gets to me whenever I go back. So yes, when I got off the ferry on 11/17/01 I also took photographs. Very few people have seen my pictures. What would be the point? Over the past 365 days, there have been far too many pictures from too many angles on too many channels and on too many pages. Yet today, while I shunned the pictures of others, I looked back at my own. And something stood out to me Visiting the wreckage of the buildings, though they were a shocking spectacle, was anything but emotional. In fact, the crowds who navigated the excavated streets to see a post-apocalyptical shell of concrete and steel displayed no emotion at all, just an unspoken inability to comprehend. But away from the crowds I found, on a street on the west side of what once was the World Trade Center, a discrete wall on which there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of pictures and notes, teddy bears and flowers all occupying the same space without actually seeming to compete for it. Just a short distance away was the private entrance to the WTC site for fire and police personnel. Photos of that entrance were prohibited. No matter; because it was at the wall that I found what I was searching for. And it may be the one thing I have to share with you that might help you to turn off the TV and move on… In a recent interview with a relative of someone who died in the WTC collapse I heard this statement; "That day was just one tiny, tiny part of her whole life!" And there it was. Amidst all the talk of death and recompense in the days following 9/11, each of the notes and pictures on that wall were shouting passionately "Hey, this person is not a corpse to me! Look at this person! They had a whole life!! " In retrospect, that explains why I had no inclination to cry while gazing at the wreckage. But at that discrete little wall, I cried. I wasn't really for sorrow, I think. It was relief - relief that there was more to that place, to those people, to that town, the world, the universe, than death, and melted metal, and twisted logic. Before that moment I had, like so many others, wanted to dive through my TV set into the decaying pile of steaming debris, to dig, sift and claw throughout the endless days, weeks, months it might take to finish the job. But instead, I came home. I learned from my local Red Cross chapter how to periodically get up in the middle of the night and see to the immediate food and shelter needs of people on my own town who have had house fires and such. These are the life-changing events that happen around us almost every damn day. And I still have as many questions as answers, but I am more confident that good things happen… So at 11:00pm on 9/11/02 I leave you with this conundrum; many of us have decided that since 9/11/01 we suddenly "get" things about this world that we did not get before. And as we enter this new post-9/11 era of politics and intrigue, it appears we'll have endless opportunities to act on that. Yet I am certain that if we put all our respective conclusions on the same table, I would not agree with many of them and many of you wouldn't agree with mine, or each other's for that matter. So on this day, at least, I will just be thankful that we have a table to put them on, and leave mine in my pocket. And when we meet on the street, you may not know what conclusions I have in my pocket but hopefully you will respect how I came by mine, and visa versa. Having said that - let me ask this one last question for all of us - what do you suppose it might be, which we don't get now, that we might get someday in the future? And what in the world do you suppose it will ultimately take for use to get it? Well, there you have it. Before tonight I had no clue I'd be writing this column. Don't know where that came from. I have no intention of putting it on the front page. But it will be here where, if you want to, you can find it. May we all learn to understand, share, move on, and leave a lot of life in our wake - Eric

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on the evening of Saturday, November 17, 2001