September 11, 2001 began as one of the most stunningly beautiful days one could imagine. Especially in New York. If you could bottle a day and save it, this would have been it. It was beautiful in Milwaukee as well, I remember, and as I settled into my downtown office early that morning I thought what a lovely day this was going to be. How wrong I was.
“You know how it ends. Everybody dies.” Thus begins Frederic Beigbeder’s book, Windows on the World, which takes place on September 11, 2001. It is a blunt, cruel reminder of what an incredible tragedy that day was, and still is.
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| The new 9/11 Memorial is now open. |
The memories are etched indelibly in our minds, where we were, what we thought, what we did, on that fateful morning. But despite the overload of media coverage leading up to and on the 10th anniversary Sunday, there’s one more perspective I’d like to share.
My premise is that I think it’s easy for those of us without a personal, individual tie to that day to look at it differently than those who lost someone in the tragedies. But we shouldn’t.
Because it shouldn’t be about the numbers. It shouldn’t be about the planes. It shouldn’t be about the buildings. It should be about the lives of the people who perished.
Each one of those lost lives had families, friends and coworkers intertwined with theirs. And each one of those lost lives began that fateful Tuesday morning normally, routinely, unsuspectingly. I didn’t know anyone in the towers that day. But hearing all the personal stories on TV over the weekend made it real, and it made me think that, as many times as I’d been to the World Trade Center over the years, it just as easily could have been me.
The names of all 2,983 people who were taken from us too soon are on the new 9/11 Memorial at the site of the twin towers, which just opened by the way. You should check out the web site, here, where you can make reservations to visit. I’m told it’s wonderful. It will certainly be part of our next trip to New York in November.
So what good can we take out of our memories of 9/11? Maybe it’s about living every moment to it’s full potential, enjoying everything and everyone we possibly can. Sometimes that’s hard to do, even when there are a myriad of little things, and maybe even some big things, bothering us. But remember, each moment we have is one moment more than the people who died that day had. Think about that when you are grabbing your coffee and commuting to work in the morning, just as most of those people did.
Change can come in an instant. So don’t put off doing things with your family. With your friends. Make that bucket list and start checking things off. Sure, it’s a good idea to save for tomorrow. But you need to live for today. Smile at every possible moment. Celebrate what you have. And make sure when you say goodbye for the day to the people that mean the most, say ‘I love you’. I think that would be a fitting memorial to the victims of 9/11.
