Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made. The darkness had a gritty quality to it. You could hold it in your hand, rub it between your fingers. Ghostly paint on the sides of buildings spelled out names of enigmatic businesses long gone;
On 9/11 I lost a close friend who left behind a wife and 2 daughters, 5 and 4. My neighbor lost her husband, her daughter a father. Close friends lost sons, brothers and others. I had spent lots of time in those buildings in the mid 80s and was left numb by the fact of their collapse.
I couldn't get myself to visit ground zero even though I could see the towers from our town beach in CT. When I finally went in 2014, that part of lower Manhattan was still all scaffolding, wire fences and torn up streets. We were there for about 5 hours and at the end I said to the docent who had toured us; "the true value of this museum will not be recognized until this entire neighborhood has healed, sidewalks and all." I pegged it as 25 years post 9/11 and we are getting close. I'll have to re-visit soon and take a look.
Last Saturday morning I was at the memorial in my town that remembers 33 people who perished that day. I saw my neighbor and her daughter and my friend who lost her brother and more. I was handed a white rose and it is still on my desk looking beautiful and fresh. I sense it as a return gift of remembrance honored. In the end it is all we can do to keep them alive. 💔
I grew up visiting German concentration camps as early as 2 years old. I didn’t completely understand why I always felt removed until I read your essay. While I know survivors, I didn’t live through it in real time as I did 9/11. For you the trauma of personally witnessing 9/11 unfortunately will always be there. That innocence you felt going to the party is gone, maybe forever. With active shooter drills it sure seems so.
This time with your father is such a gift, especially since you both chose to make it happen. You didn’t need the recent losses, horrible tragedies, to make this move towards each other. Enjoy every moment.
Memories and history are all colored and rewritten by time and subsequent events. I often see 9/11 written about as the time we collectively lost our innocence as a country, but America was birthed in blood and greed: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the endless wars on terror, the Cold War, the Great Depression, the Great Recession. Was there ever a time when this country wasn't involved in bloodshed or economic crises? The newest generation is inheriting a planet increasingly engulfed in floods and flames, a teetering democracy, a gutting of civil rights, a cold civil war, the dawn of the pandemic age, historic income inequality, and growing domestic terrorism. 9/11 felt like a rip in the fabric of time, but the horrors heaped on a generation just learning to walk is heartbreaking in its own way.
On 9/11 I lost a close friend who left behind a wife and 2 daughters, 5 and 4. My neighbor lost her husband, her daughter a father. Close friends lost sons, brothers and others. I had spent lots of time in those buildings in the mid 80s and was left numb by the fact of their collapse.
I couldn't get myself to visit ground zero even though I could see the towers from our town beach in CT. When I finally went in 2014, that part of lower Manhattan was still all scaffolding, wire fences and torn up streets. We were there for about 5 hours and at the end I said to the docent who had toured us; "the true value of this museum will not be recognized until this entire neighborhood has healed, sidewalks and all." I pegged it as 25 years post 9/11 and we are getting close. I'll have to re-visit soon and take a look.
Last Saturday morning I was at the memorial in my town that remembers 33 people who perished that day. I saw my neighbor and her daughter and my friend who lost her brother and more. I was handed a white rose and it is still on my desk looking beautiful and fresh. I sense it as a return gift of remembrance honored. In the end it is all we can do to keep them alive. 💔
I grew up visiting German concentration camps as early as 2 years old. I didn’t completely understand why I always felt removed until I read your essay. While I know survivors, I didn’t live through it in real time as I did 9/11. For you the trauma of personally witnessing 9/11 unfortunately will always be there. That innocence you felt going to the party is gone, maybe forever. With active shooter drills it sure seems so.
This time with your father is such a gift, especially since you both chose to make it happen. You didn’t need the recent losses, horrible tragedies, to make this move towards each other. Enjoy every moment.
Memories and history are all colored and rewritten by time and subsequent events. I often see 9/11 written about as the time we collectively lost our innocence as a country, but America was birthed in blood and greed: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the endless wars on terror, the Cold War, the Great Depression, the Great Recession. Was there ever a time when this country wasn't involved in bloodshed or economic crises? The newest generation is inheriting a planet increasingly engulfed in floods and flames, a teetering democracy, a gutting of civil rights, a cold civil war, the dawn of the pandemic age, historic income inequality, and growing domestic terrorism. 9/11 felt like a rip in the fabric of time, but the horrors heaped on a generation just learning to walk is heartbreaking in its own way.