Still impactful 8 years later

Post 28 - Remembering those lost

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr.

While I am often in NYC, I haven't been by Ground Zero in several years. This time it was unavoidable (not that I have avoided the area, it just hasn't been near where I was for those other visits) as my hotel was right down the street, and my client's office was literally on the other side of the street to where the Towers once stood; and is now a construction pit just reaching surface level in the building stage.

I was surprised at my emotional reaction as I am generally not a very outwardly emotional individual (understatement of the year perhaps). As I walked past the site I found myself choked up at the memory of that day; for those who were lost, those left behind, and my own reaction watching the news as it happened while I nursed my month old baby girl. It is the only time, and the feeling didn't last long, that I questioned bringing a new life into this world. As I walked into the World Financial Tower, gathering my composure, I was struck again, harder (actual tears), by the memorial for the lives lost who were member of my client's team. Their names, and a list of six single words describing them and who they were immortalized in marble. So simple. So beautiful.

These reminders reminded me to be thankful that there are teams of people looking out for me and my family so that this kind of tragegy can be avoided. So apropos to yesterday's post; I will smile at the security teams, and fill out yet another form, and answer the same questions time and time again without complaint if it means that no one ever has to memorialize the life of someone lost to an act of terror ever again.