What I Learned on September 11

It was a PowerPoint presentation. On the darkest day in modern American history, the single focus of my attention was a series of slides on my hard drive. I was visiting a client’s office and preparing to deliver a pitch to two existing and three potential customers. To this day I still recall that I was on page three, switching back and forth between two graphics under consideration. One of my associates walked hurriedly into the room and instructed me to “tune in” to CNN on my laptop. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

It is only with seven years perspective and having had the question put to me for purposes of this column that I realize exactly how small and self-centered I had become. My reception of the news was accompanied by the smallest of shrugs. This is the modern age in which we live. On occasion, planes fall from the sky and people lose their lives. In more horrible circumstances, they hit populated areas. It was only a matter of time before one struck a skyscraper, reminiscent of the foggy day in 1945 when William Smith parked a B-25 in the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. I couldn’t think of anyone in my family who had been planning to fly that morning, so I returned to my work. In a matter of moments the news was brushed from my attention and the upcoming proposal consumed me once again.

Having finished the piece, I packed up my computer and moved to the media center where the presentation was to take place. I found two of my colleagues who were in on the bid staring at the wide screen display. Another moment of eternal embarrassment ensued. “This is a big bid, guys. I think we can find something better to do than watch television.” I was ignored. A second plane had struck and the day’s business events were quickly canceled as the news continued to roll in.

Events rapidly morphed my blasé demeanor into a sense of personal urgency. I learned that my brother and one of my nephews were both in New York City that day. Each was within a mile of Ground Zero according the last plans my mother and sister had received. As the full range of attacks was revealed, even worse news loomed on the horizon. My father-in-law is a career military intelligence man who traveled weekly between an air base in upstate New York and the Pentagon. My wife was beyond the point of rational speech by the time I arrived home. It was only later we learned, after many phone calls had been thwarted by lack of service, that none of our loved ones had been lost. My wife’s father informed us that he had, only days earlier, been walking down a hallway in the Pentagon precisely where the aircraft struck. The brother and nephew took days to make it out of the city, but were physically intact. We had dodged all the bullets and the family heaved a sigh of relief, but it had been too close for comfort.

In retrospect, even the comfort we felt in finding our family members safe was a source of guilt. The magnitude of the disaster we all witnessed on our television screens, playing out like the cruelest of screenplays, was simply too great to incorporate. Our own joy for the security of our loved ones was a feeling I could wrap inside my mind. The losses facing thousands of others were something foreign — these things just don’t happen in the real world where I live. It was easier to lock those feelings away and let the CNN commentators do the mourning for me.

Everyone took their own lessons from that day, but it was with some sadness that I watched various people try to usurp our memories of the tragedy to their own purpose. A moment which initially unified the country in a way not seen in the modern era was eventually spun in every direction, resulting in divisions among our various American tribes. But for me, if there is any lasting education to be gained from the smoke, fire, and violence, it is a reinforced understanding of our basic shared humanity.

Tragedy is tragedy, regardless of the scale. When we drive by the scene of an accident it is never simply fodder for the six o’clock news; real people with very tangible lives are lost or in peril. Even if it doesn’t touch us directly, it still reaches out to our common condition as human beings and the bonds we all share.

A shrug of the shoulders is never the correct response. September 11, 2001, taught me exactly how small I had become and reminds me of how much larger my soul needs to be.