What I’ll do with the anniversary no one wants to celebrate.
I was working as a receptionist on Wall Street and had been at my desk for just a few minutes when it all started. After a long, horrific, and bizarre day, I walked the Brooklyn Bridge to my friend’s place in Prospect Heights (I wrote the whole story in depth elsewhere). I spent the next few days in shock, like most of us, before going back to work in Lower Manhattan again. People in hazmat suits were cleaning office windows as I made my way from the 2 train in pantyhose and lip gloss. Two years later, I got a job with a foundation that addressed long-term 9/11 recovery, from the effects on immigrant communities and spikes in domestic violence to advocacy for the recovery workers who had started getting sick. I had that job, in an office that overlooked Ground Zero from Cortlandt Street, for five years.
So early September is a strange time for me.
Each time the anniversary rolls around it brings up a cocktail of feelings and memories, some that I will do anything to avoid and others that I’m almost compelled to express and explore. Sometimes I yearn for a memorial service; other times I want to pretend it never happened. Colleagues of mine from the foundation days have expressed similarly contradictory feelings. A pastor friend is relieved that this year he’ll be among strangers who don’t know his history and won’t…
