Reflections on 9/11

Scarsdale resident and former TV news anchor Sharon Dizenhuz shared this memory of September 11:
In my mind's eye, it still looks like the photograph below on the horizon of the southern part of Manhattan. My whole world view shifted on that day, when horror and fear redefined themselves for me, but not my view of the lower Manhattan skyline. Because the alternative is still too painful, the image bank in my mind's eye persists with the illusion of this complete, whole, unviolated and seemingly inviolable view of the southern tip of Manhattan.

I was anchoring the news at NY1 that crisp, gorgeous, blue-skied day. It was supposed to be a typical mayoral primary day. But from the second I got the call to come in early because a plane hit the WTC, to the moment, 10 or 11 hours later when I finally got up from the anchor desk for the first time, the day catapulted me from one unimaginable reality to another, and ultimately, to a permanently altered world view. As I remember it now, it all proceeds in excruciating slow motion. I see the towers tumbling down in real time on the monitors in the newsroom, while I am meant to be describing the significance and impact of this sight on live television, and all I can hear is the voice in my head screaming..."Oh my GOD...how many people are in that falling building now? How many people are dying right before my eyes? How many lives are being ruined now in a rumbling, billowing, smoke-filled domino effect of pain and loss? I probably know some of them." (i did).

Having worked in news for a fairly long time by then, I wondered.. in that second sound track you develop in your brain when doing live TV, who these people were whose stories we would soon come to know and cry over? And on the other track, the main one where you actually speak over the din from the other one, i struggled to keep composure, to get and deliver good information that might be useful or maybe even calming to a panicked city.

I still have a physical reaction when I think or talk about 9/11 for very long. This day, for me, lasted for such a long time...through sunrises and sunsets when the acrid smell of burning flesh still hung in the air and stung in my nose even as far uptown as my 76th street apartment, while the desperate and the terrified walked the streets holding pictures of people they loved and could not find on makeshift signs. It lasted weeks when I would pass fellow New Yorkers on the street with vacant, haunted faces and imagine they'd already discovered the worst. They were strangers, but in that window of time, New Yorker's eyes would meet as they never had before and wordlessly tear up with pain and compassion, solidarity, and understanding. I would bring a weekly pie to my local fire house that lost 14 men in one day, thank the few who were still standing, and cry all the way home. That endless slow motion day endured through months as I hosted a live call in show at the station, where those who'd lost loved ones could call in and speak to a revolving door of therapists and clergy we had as live guests along with counter-terrorism experts who could advise New Yorkers about the new, secondary threat of anthrax, and physicians who could help first responders and residents of downtown cope with mysterious new respiratory ailments; where dozens of callers confessed that they'd felt paralyzed for weeks and had not yet left their couches. In that city of intentional strangers once so proud to be anonymous, we became neighbors who make eye contact for a time. And these neighbors called up and sobbed over what had happened to our neighborhood, to their families, to their hope. The stories I'd anxiously and fearfully imagined that first part of that first day, emerged in agonizing high relief for a long, long endless day.

12 years later, those vivid images play instantly in the movie in my head at the mention of 9/11 and remind me to honor the memories, to tell those neighbors I still think of them often, and to try to do what I can to make sure this never happens again. No one has to tell me "never forget". I have that video burned onto my mind's eye. Right next to the picture of the perfect beautiful skyline in lower Manhattan I still cling to.