Journeys of the Questress - WTC
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 2
Home
The Way it Was - 1
The Way it Was - 2
Sept 19 - When Tomorrow Never Comes
Sept 27 - Oral Interpretation
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 1
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 2
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 3
Oct 11 - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Oct 28 - Each Day I Search the Rubble
Nov 12 - When Spires Fall
Nov 19 - 911 The Rape of America
Dec 14 - Just A Thought
Dec 18 - A Sense of Place
Feb 2 - Final Pass to the End Zone
March 3 - Sitting on the Edge
March 14- Do You Still Remember
March 20 - Virtual Walk-Through
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 1
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 2
April 1 - Towers of Light
May 14 - View From Above
May 30 - Tunnel At the End of the Light
May 31 - Seventeen Hundred
Aug 9 - From the Margins Erased
Aug 30 - The Train Doesn't Stop There Anymore
Sept 9 - Ceremonies of Light and Dark
Sept 10 - Just An Anniversary
Sept 12 - September Holds Great Promise
Literary Reflections
Rebirth and Resurrection
The Winter Garden Springs To Life
The Winter Garden Springs To Life - con't
Underpass to the Past
Rebuilding Ground Zero
Under Hallowed Ground
Borders
Yahrzeit
What Will Fill the Void?
I Submit a Design
Footprints in the Dust
My Memorial Design Submission
My Memorial Design - Drawings
New Path Train Station
Path Station Tour
May We Never Forget
That Which Surives
War Without End
4th Anniversary
Footprints in the Dust
Void
I Miss 9/11
Time Comes Between Us
A Thousand Cranes
Fear Factor
Love Letters On The Wall
Empty Chairs
Sitting on the Edge of Forever
Walking the Perimeter of Emptiness
A Counting of Days
For Friends Absent But Not Forgotten
Stigmata
The Memory Keeper's Promise
Unbreak My Heart
Standing On The Edge Of Forever
Both Sides Now
A Memory In Time
The Gravity of Loss
The Survivors Rise Up
Flowers Will Bloom
The Fire Within Us
The Sentinel
Stronger Than The Storm
Between the Candle and the Stars
Ghosts
A Journey Through Remembrance
Canticle of Remembrance
Beyond the Crucible of Chaos
Journey Through Remembrance project
What See We Now
Forever In Our Hearts
Keeping the Flame Alive
The Rebuilding of Ground Zero continues
Does Anyone Care Anymore?
Where Is Our Story Teller of Pain
At Memory's Edge
Dust Thou Art and to Dust Thou Shalt Return
7x7x70
Heroes Never Die
The Flame Inside Our Hearts
The Year of the Heroes of 9/11
Déjà Vu
Remembering 9/11 in the year of COVID-19
Coronavirus Decimates Ailing Sept. 11 Responders
Touching From a Distance
That Which Survives 20 years later
2021 - 20 years later
Memories of Terror Return
Putin's Name Covered Over On Teardrop Memorial
The 9/11 Tribute Museum Closes
When Memories Fade Away
St. Nicholas at Ground Z is rebuilt
The Blue Wall of the Unidentified Victims
When Time Calls Your Name
When Art Gets It All Wrong

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Part 2

30 years ago I lost a house to a fire. The local township for whatever
reasons, I forget, didn't tear down that house for 9 months. 9 months I had
to walk by it every day. 9 months I couldn't put it out of my mind for one
single day. I'd sometimes go out in the night when I couldn't sleep and
stand in the ruined entryway, crying. After they tore it down, it took years
for me to work through my grief because I had become stuck in that moment.
The moment of its destruction. Is this what is going to happen to me now?
Will the Nation also become stuck in a moment in time after which all
revolves around it and is counted from it?
 
They've compared 9/11 to Pearl Harbor. In many ways that's an accurate
comparison. But it differs in a number of significant and psychologically
important ways. After Pearl Harbor war was declared on ONE country and the
ENTIRE Nation rose up to join in the efforts of defeating Japan. Today, we
have the slippery world of the terrorists. They can exist anywhere. And we
are not united in a war effort because this war is being fought on a higher
technological and political plane. Those of us who can't join our fighting
forces have nothing to do except wave our flags and contribute to the many
charities that have sprung up. There also is the fact that once we defeated
Japan, there was an end. We had vindicated our dead, we could dance in the
streets. We were once again safe. Not so now. If there was a beginning,
there will be no definitive end. We will never be safe.
 
So what do I do? I would like just 48 hours where I don't have to find a
9/11 reminder shoved in my face. I want to take a breather and focus
on....what? On resolving my grief? On the other hand, I eagerly want to
photograph the memorial Towers of Light and the crushed Globe. I want to be
part of the planning of a permanent memorial. I want to keep writing and
posting to my WTC journal Web site. And thus grief, the world, and my life
has taken on an almost schizophrenic existence.
 
I think that what I have encountered is the emotional equivalent of AIDS. It
is a virus lodged in my and others psyches. The usual balm will not route it
out. At present there is no cure. Will I die from it? Like the AIDS patient
who has lived with her disease for years, there are ways to cope. In time we
will discover our alpha interferon. And it will not be a cure. But life will
go on. Me and you, and the widows and heroes will learn to live with the
reminders and the pain. And our lives will all be different. And in the end
we will die. Some from not being able to cope, some from what surely will be
other terrorist acts, and others from old age. Everything has changed...and
yet...nothing. Life must go on. For the best memorial that I or anyone can
erect, is a life well lived to the best of ones abilities. And to make that
life count to the betterment of all humankind. Today's generations and the
ones of a tomorrow yet to come.
 
c 2002 Leona M Seufert