The History channel coined it the "9/11 Year". It's over and all I feel is an overwhelming sadness. Sadness at the changed skyline, sadness for that huge hole in the ground, but mostly sadness for all the people who's loved ones were never recovered.

 

But I've finally come to terms with the fact that the Towers are gone. Really gone. Seeing the Pit on TV and all the mourners placing their flowers and photos and mementos into that circle, hit that fact home. Watching the President go around the circle, comforting, touching, embracing those mourners gave me flashbacks to when he appeared there when it was "the Pile". However, now, in real-time, on my TV screen, I could see the very bottom of where the Towers stood. A naked, dust swirling, open wound in the ground. The Towers are really gone.

 

And so I have moved on. I will cherish my pictures of the Towers when they were in their glory. I may still shed a tear when I see the horrific images of them burning and becoming a heap of rubble. But the virtual walkthroughs of the World Trade Center, that had kept me awake so many nights, are over. I no longer pray for the dead. I pray for those who survived and ask God to grant them peace.

 

For a year anytime I watched a movie wherein the Towers appeared I'd be jolted out of the fantasy world of that movie and just sat there gasping. Tonight I watched a movie and the Towers appeared. I just felt a sadness that these two stately creations, creations that had defined NYC enough to become almost like movie stars themselves, were now ghosts. And then I proceeded to enjoy the rest of the movie.

 

For a large part of my life, September was a month of beginnings. As a child, it was school, and as an adult, for many years, I worked in a University environment, so the work year also started with this month. Now the Nation will always mark a year from the time the terrorists struck. We got through the first year, we'll get through the next one too. There is so much good and beautiful and joyful to this life. We can't live it forever in the darkness of grief, fear, or despair. At 18, so many years ago, I wrote in my journal right before I left for college "September holds great promise". It was true then and I believe, it is true now.

c 2002 Leona M Seufert