I listened to an interview yesterday on NPR with Carrie Lemack, who lost her mother in the September 11, 2001 attacks. She runs Families of September 11 and Global Surivors Network. She produced a documentary film called Killing in the Name, which profiles a Jordanian Muslim who lost 27 members of his family when a suicide bomber blew themselves up at his wedding. I was struck profoundly by something Lemack said. She talked about how often people, after learning that she lost her mother on September 11, share with her their stories of where they were on that day.
"Its just hard. Its like telling Jackie Kennedy where you were when her husband was shot. You just wouldn't do that."
Lots of us are blogging this week about where we were on September 11, 2001. Like most people I remember where I was. I remember what I saw, what I felt. And on this decade anniversary of the attacks, I need to remember that what I felt and experienced matters little. I wasn't there.
The people who escaped the buildings inthe midst of fire and carnage, with injuries or memories that will impact them for the remainder of their lives - they don't care where I was. The people who lost a husband, wife, partner, lover, child, parent, sibling - they don't care where I was. Their lives were changed in ways I can't begin to imagine.
9/11 has been capitalized to death. By our media, by our politicians, by authors and musicians and talk show hosts and pastors and pundits. We've all of us, every one of us, used the date to some extent to garner attention, capital or comfort. God knows comfort is something we are all much in need of these days, and it is expected that anyone's response to such an enormous loss of human life and potential would be visceral enough to be this keenly felt some ten years after the fact. But God, even in the writing of this piece I can't escape the fact that I'm in a way just as guilty as everyone else of capitalizing from tragedy. Enough, I say.
In the blogosphere much of the time people rally around events and issues in a way that adds to the greater context and discussion at large, and I love that. But there are times where the writing around some issues take on a center focus, and I feel a little uncomfortable about that. I feel uncomfortable about me doing that. And I know I've done it. I'm guilty.
I say this not to take issue with what anyone else is writing or saying about 9/11, but to remind myself that when it comes to this subject, there are several thousand stories far more important than mine.
