Repost: My 9/11 Story

tyunglebower ♦ September 11, 2014 ♦ Leave a comment

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I wrote a detailed account, for the first time, of my own experience of that day. Since then, I have reposted that account on the anniversary, and allowed it to stand as my definitive response to those events. I try not to begrudge anybody of their personal methods of handling the event, but I admit I have always wondered about the wisdom and effectiveness of reliving, minute by minute, the terrorist attacks of those days. A few channels on TV replay their coverage from 9/11 moment to moment each year on this day-coverage I don’t tend to watch. If I need to find the images, I can do so easily online whenever I want to.

I don’t often want to.

“Never forget,” to me is an unfair pronouncement. No conscious person with all of their mental capacities in tact on that day is going to forget it. I sometimes feel that “never forget” has another meaning, “Remember what happened in the way I am choosing to remember it…as potently as possible all day, every year.”

I have chosen not to do it that way. My account is part of the “record” now, and I have used it to answer the inevitable “where we you?” Despite the tragic nature of the subject matter, I consider it one of my better pieces of writing. You can read it here.