On September 11 2001, the world reeled in horror as America was attacked.
I remember it vividly. It was the middle of a Queensland Spring night and I couldn't sleep. I got out of bed and turned on the TV. The channel was playing what I thought was a futuristic movie. But it wasn't a movie. It was happening.
Half way around the world, I sat on my couch in shock. Nearly 3000 people perished.
Today, I wanted so badly to write something by way of tribute to those that died and those who still mourn their loved ones, but the words fail me. All these years later, I cannot truly articulate the horror and rage I felt that night. The disbelief and helplessness. The realisation that something of this magnitude was happening and it would change the world forever.
There are few moments where one can say " I remember when ... " and mean it with such solemnity.
The death of Lady Di. I know exactly where I was. the death of President John F Kennedy - and I was only a child at that time. As a little kid when I saw my father weep as the news was broadcast that Sir Winston Churchill had passed away. The day that the crew of The Challenger perished. The news of the passing of Steve Irwin.
Key moments of my life when people who I did not know and had never met would trigger a connection in my brain and that my brain would hit the record button.
Why does that happen? Why does our brain make a decision to create a folder and store these things - when we live millions of moments throughout our lives? It cannot be because I was an adult and thought to myself " I must remember this. Mental note to self : store this memory. "
No. It is much deeper and much more important than that.
Our emotions must somehow communicate the importance of these events to our brains and say " whoah. This is important. We must never forget this because it needs to be stored for the future. "
I remember the last time I saw my father before he left us. He was in a wheelchair at hospital and we had taken him out for a walk in the grounds. He had been indoors for some time and he was joyful that he was " allowed out. " He was barefoot and his feet touched the grass and he smiled and told us how wonderful it felt to crunch his toes in the freshly mown grass .... it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it now.
I cannot begin to comprehend how the relatives and friends of those who perished in that ultimate act of cowardice by enemies of America - for it was cowardice - must feel when the 11th of September comes around each year. I simply can't fathom the depth of emotion that must be experienced as these folk delve in to their memory banks and retrieve snippets of recollection from their baskets of love.
All around the world there are people suffering the trauma of separation from loved ones - through death or the folly of Governmental isolation policies.
But those families who were suddenly wrenched from their loved ones by an act of such mindless violence as was the case at 9/11, that is in another category altogether.
As one commenter said " This makes me sad and mad. "
Yes, we have lived in a world of sadness and madness for centuries.
And it all started for the 21st Century on September 11 2001.
So I am not going to write a tribute. It somehow doesn't even feel right to do so.
But I want to post this to let people know that , just because people like me cannot express my tribute in poetry or powerfully written articles, it does not mean we do not care.
Maybe I will leave it to Alan Jackson and the great compilation of images by MEGARA2009 on youtube.
When I first watched this, I rang Redhead and she said to me " those shots of what happened afterwards remind me of the riots that are happening now. How can this be allowed to happen? "
So true. The destruction of America must stop.
Has the trojan horse that is terrorism breached the city gates? I believe yes.
But, no matter what, I am thinking of you all and, most importantly, we must never forget this horror and never become desensitised to violence so that our emotions forget to tell our brains to hit the record button.
We must have emotions that tell our brains to record and always know where we were when the world stopped turning.
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