9:11, Fifty Years Later
by Austin Repath

9:11 Fifty Years Later
(Rough Draft)
 

The first few years following the September 11th tragedy saw memorial services both at Ground Zero and across the country.  There was a great deal of pain and grief that needed to be expressed. People across America need to know that the dead would not be forgotten and that the horrors of what happened were not put aside. They searched for some fitting way to do this, with the hope that perhaps one day something good might come from this one day, that had become the defining moment of the 21 Century. 
                However after a decade of public mourning, the survivors found themselves exhausted and simply got on as best they could with the rest of their lives.  The formal remembrances of 9:11 consisted of a brief ceremony at the memorial wall that had been erected within the garden park complex of Ground Zero. And the slow ringing of the newly cast (from melted remains of ladder truck One) fire hall bell .
               Gradually over the next decade, the events of Sept 11, 2001 found their place in the history textbooks and within the shared memory of all those who had seen or be present. Which included for most practical purpose all of us who were alive at the time.  Slowly it fell away into the pantheon of time along with Pearl Harbor, assassination of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and within this august company found its peace.
             At least that is the official story.  The real story is somewhat different.  Three hundred and forty three fireman, brave men who charged the Towers intent only on rescuing all they could, died.  Or perhaps one could safely say that for all but a few whose bodies were recovered, they simply vanished.  They disappeared leaving behind a grieving and emotionally deeply wounded NYFD.  Many of whom despite the help of their family and friends were never really able to let go of their brothers and the life shattering events of that defining day. 
             Nearly three thousands innocent people died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers. The families and friends from around the world who had lost loved ones numbered in the tens of thousands.  This circle also carried with them an ache and an unspoken sense of lost of purpose or hope. And in the outer circle, those of us who almost like voyeurs couldn’t seem to get enough of watching replays of the events, trying in some dumb unconscious way trying to find some meaning or validation for our lives.  And these waves that (pulsed) rippled outward from the centre of the events did in fact bring about just such a validation.
            It appears to started with the fireman who survived the trauma of that day.  The years after Sept 11/02 were not good years for them. These good men, trained to act courageously and without thought for their own safety , had great difficulty expressing and coming to terms with the magnitude of their loss and grief.  Although supported by their firemen’s brothers and their own families, many of these men took earlier retirement. Some found themselves staring out windows seeing only the emptiness that had taken their friends. Some tried grief counciling; other tried therapy.  Some parish priests talked in terms of the dark night of their soul..
           Little seemed to help these men who carried too much guilt, had seen too much horror and who had grown up with too much idealism and goodness of heart.  Too often they found walked the boroughs of New York marked men, touched by more than they knew or would ever have the words to express if they did know. Only a few of them had some sense that destiny was not yet done with them
            Maybe two decades after the events of Sept 11, 2001, something pattern began to emerge. On the eve of September ll,  a few of these men would make their way down to the new park memorial at Ground Zero.  Others would show up just before daybreak.  There they would stand silently with the other veterans of that fateful day.  The ones who were questioned about their somewhat strange need to return to Ground Zero gave no particular reason for their being there.  They just felt drawn to be there..  They would stay until around noon, chat a bit with each other and then make their ways back to the places they called home.  It made them feel better was how a few understanding wives had responded when asked about their husband’s behavior. 
             After a few years these impromptu visits took on a certain accepted ritual.  To begin with each of this select fraternity started contacting each other. There began to be some need to have if possible everyone there. It became something like a night shift.  They would arrive a midnight and stay until full twelve hour shift had been completed. They showed up at first a few dozen and then a hundred, most with a thermos of coffee, maybe a sandwich, to stand or sit all through the night , one with their brothers and in truth with the others who had begun to join with them in this vigil. 
           “Hey, Mike, you’re not asleep, are you?” “Shawn , is that you?” “Peter you awake?”  “Tim is that you over there” and so it would continue this litany of names assuring one another that all remained awake for the vigil.  For this is what it had become – a sleepless night of rememberance.
            Despite the discomfort of standing vigil, it was considered the best way they could honour those others who had died a hero’s death.  Sometime soon after wards came the calling out of the names of those who had died and with their deaths had made this sacred ground. With this latest development, the calling out to the fallen, followed by the question or perhaps more a simply statement of belief.  “You here?” came the sense that those standing vigil were not alone.
            Yet despite the roll calling made sacred by the litany of the remembered names, there was primarily the darkness and the silence of the long night.  However for anyone who has ever stood vigil with these men knew that something was happening that no therapist or priest had been able to achieve – something akin to an exorcism. 
            These men and women secure within the bonds of closeness and the gentleness of a long night, fell beneath their own somber thoughts and worries, dropped under their personal guilt and found themselves held by the softness of night and the peace of the silence.  Taken down to that placed within their own souls that never had words to begin with,  they knew that all was as it should be and they were here and now in the right place and moment.
           This was their moment. A time to be with the grief and a place to acknowledge their sorrow. And here for many the unexplanable guilt of being alive was lifted from their shoulders.
The darkness hid the tears, but not the peace that swept into the hearts of those who filled the glade of Ground Zero.
           It was when these men returned home, that those about them knew that something had happened down there at Ground Zero.  Knew that it was something that couldn’t be worded, but could be rejoiced in. 
          Too many words had been spoken after Sept 11/01.  The wisdom of these men, lay elsewhere and their families and loved ones respected their privacy, yet they sensed that something was happening, something was being born , rising out of the ashes of GZ that was worth noting.
          And so quietly from husband to wife, cousin to cousin, mentioned briefly after church, more and more people would find themselves at  midnight on the eve of 9/11 standing in the dark, struggling to stay awake during the long night, listening to the litany of names being called out, being touched by something that had no words, and yet was real beyond anything they had every read or heard.  All went home touched by a river of truth that made it easier to return to the day-to-day with a more open heart, and perhaps it they had been pressed to admit it, a little more courage to live their lives.
          In the years that followed, the outer ring felt once again the ripples. emitting from that sacred place.  The others who had been riveted to their television sets began to hear rumours of how people where doing this vigil thing at Ground Zero on Sept 11 of each year.  For whatever reason, and many out of the ordinary come to mind, it was never written about or mentioned by the media. Besides what was there to say. People standing all night long in silence doesn’t have much news value. 
          As the official ceremonial services of Sept 11faded into conventional almost forgotten observances, these quiet rituals grew quietly until almost everyone across North America had been asked in a quiet tone of voice by a friend or someone in the know. “Are you going to do the 9/11 this year?”  It had evolved into a personal communal event just as often shared by a few in their own home, and by not a few churches—the 9/11 vigil.
          But perhaps I should return to the slow evolving of the 9/11 ritual itself.  After the long night, “the brothers” waited for the dawn. Remembering in a knowing way what was about to transpire, they came into a tight circle.  And they let themselves relive the foreknowledge of the horror in the full light of the morning.  A bell cast from one of the destroyed fire trucks had been incorporate into the memorial.  The oldest member went forward and rang it once at 8:43 am,  then kept it titillating like a muted funeral drum until the time of the first tower’s collapse.
          The bell rang along once more, and the gathered there present gasped out the words that came from so many on that on that fateful day “Oh my God.”  And repeated until the bell took up the tension that ended with a final thunderous cacophonous peal. And so was announced the moment of final collapse. And once more the response fr m all “Oh my God.” 
          The silence that followed became the sacred space for all the sorrows and the anguishes of each one’s life to be remembered, grieved, and honored. 
          Then the youngest member of the gathered grouped came forward and spoke the present truth for all, “My God, I’m alive.” And then picked up and chanted by everyone present until it rose in shape and tone to become an anthem for a truth beyond sorrow and death. And with all that implied the group fell hushed for a time. 
           But not for long.  With the power and courage and anguish that had made that place and that distant moment sacred came the release of joy and purpose that filled the repeating chorus  like an endless series of Alleluia, “I’m alive!”
           Built up by the long cold wakefulness of the long night, the contemplation of the passing of all things, the death of loved ones, and the frailty of human life, came the realization that each of us was alive. Our story had not finished.  There was an pristine energy in the air.  Certainly not a resurrection, maybe not even a near death experience, but something close to being returned to our lives with new hope. 
          What followed depended on the people who where there with you, whether you stood at ground zero or with a few friends in your home around a lit candle or by yourself in a neighborhood park.  Some hugged  the stranger next to them, other reaffirmed their love for those dear to them,  some stood in silence, awed by the unexpected force of such a simple declaration.  And some where simply overwhelemed at the release that came from all that had been honored and remembered and celebrated on that day.
          And so it became an unofficial day of what could in a genuine way be called a day of worship.  And the final destiny of those who had been touched so personally and deeply by that tragic day, who had been touched so deeply by their loss and who had returned to unwittingly create this special day, the first modern holy day of the new calendar. 

Visit Ground Zero, Fifty Years Later

 Austin Repath (thepilgrim@look.ca)