What I didn't write about the 9/11 Anniversary

[geminigirl]

My Dad still needs to talk to me on that day.

The fear is still palpable. The shock of not knowing where my father was, the moment the towers collapsed and being certain that he was dead. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

And the guilt. The guilt that my Dad was okay, and so many other people weren't.

What have we learned in five years? What have we given up? Are we safer now than we were then?

I avoided as much of the news coverage as I could. I don't need to see it. I can still remember Michael racing down the stairs shouting that I should put CNN on, what channel was CNN. I remember Pat's voice on the phone telling me that Mom was at home trying to find out what happened to my father. I know what it felt like to call my Mom and tell her that I wasn't at work, that I was at home, and would stay there until I heard from her. I don't know if anything will ever take away the sheer terror of watching the towers collapse, knowing my Dad was still missing, and being able to do nothing but sit on the floor and scream and sob for several minutes. My heart races and my eyes tear thinking of it.

Some news report said the other day said something about how things will never be the same as they were at 8:45 on 9/11/01. I don't know that that's true for everyone, but I do know that there are things that have changed for me forever.

Comments

[rawness.livejournal.com]

Things SHOULD have changed for everyone. People should have gotten less arrogant about this country but it's still AMERICA IS GREAT GREAT GREAT, WE ARE SO MUCH BETTER AND WE WILL CRUSH ANYONE WHO DOESN'T THINK SO LA LA LA. WE ARE AMERICA WE RULE WE ARE ALL POWERFUL. You think that attitude would have calmed down (or even dissapeared) after they showed us that we are not, in fact, perfect/awesome/great/whatever. And while I don't like to bash on Bush for the way he's reacted to it and handled it - I'm going to here.

He has spit on the memory of that day and the meaning and loss behind it. He's used it as an excuse to further his own fucking bullshit agenda. If he wanted to go after Iraq, FINE. FINE FINE FINE. Wars happen. But using 9/11 as an EXCUSE to start/further one when it was unrelated? BULLSHIT. Compelete and utter BULLSHIT. He tugged on people's heartstrings and their grief and used it to get people to rally behind him for revenge when in reality it was ... GOD I can't even think about this anymore. And how he used it during his re-election campaign? JFSDLKFDJF. Okay I'm really done now.

[rawness.livejournal.com]

My apologies for ranting btw. I know how you feel. I had a lot of friends in NY/DC and of course I live near Somerset. So while it wasn't a PARENT I was worried about there were several friends I didn't hear from for longer than I care to think about :\.

[katishna.livejournal.com]

I think you may have hit on the thing that bugs me about el presidente.

To geminigirl: I don't even know what to say to you, fortunately i've never been in that situation, the closest I've gotten is the OKC bombing when i spent a good deal of time mentally going through everyone i knew making sure none of them were there. But in the end i was lucky, I didn't know anyone. I am so glad your father made it through safely.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

{squeeze}