Today marks 20 years since the happenings of 9/11. A day most of us will never forget and a day that changed the lives of so many forever.
2 years ago we had the privilege of traveling to New York City and coming to this special place. We didn’t have much time in NYC but we knew we had to come and be here. The space was immense. The gravity, so huge. I can’t really describe it as anything other than surreal, and the only other time I’ve felt this way was when I was standing above Hitler’s bunker in Germany. Sickness to the pit of the stomach and overwhelming sadness that something terrible happened here and the carnage unfathomable. It takes you back to the day it happened, what these innocent people would have been going through, how their last minutes on earth played out and the pure disbelief that something like this could happen to everyday people like us.
But then, humanity. As we walked around this place we heard stories of courage, first responders but also ordinary civilians running into the unknown and some, ultimately their death, to help others. The outpouring of humanity globally when it happened, the humanity that still prevails now through generations of families affected by this tragedy and how they are connected for lifetimes to come by the serendipitous happenings on that dark day.
This pain and tragedy happens all over the world and I’ve never been able to reconcile how certain lives are valued over others, particularly in war. How we can see ourselves and empathise with the pain of the people in certain (generally western) countries but somehow not so much in others where their pain doesn’t affect us. How we can hate people we don’t know for what they represent or what we think they do.
We are literally all the same. We all have families, communities, jobs, neighbours, worries, pain. We are them and they are us. All over the world. Their names forever lay here. This place will not be hidden or forgotten as time moves on. We will always remember ❤️