How did 9/11 affect you?

 

The 9/11 Memorial South Pool in New York City.

The 9/11 Memorial South Pool in New York City.

As 9/11 arrives again this year, I am reminded that our confused, chaotic, untrusting, contemporary world began that day in 2001.

No matter our age, the world changed at that point in time.

Is it too trite to suggest that we all lost our innocence that day?

The depth of the impact hit me forcefully when I visited the memorial in New York City.

That deep, dark hole made Dante’s nine circles of hell a reality for me.

As we try to sort out current events, it may serve us well to remember the before and after of that tragic day.

How did that day impact you? What do you remember? If you were very young on that fateful day, how did you learn about it? What did you learn?

I invite you to share your thoughts by posting a comment below.

I issue this invitation because in sharing our humanity, bonds are built between us. I believe such bonds allow us to stand stronger.

Use the questions below to jumpstart your thoughts. Or share your own comment about or reaction to 9/11 and its effect on you and yours.

After 9/11, I felt ____________________ because ___________________.

After 9/11, I took this action to help victims: _________________________.

 

 

Photo credit: By Dave Z – 9/11 Memorial, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39762356z

6 thoughts on “How did 9/11 affect you?

  1. Until 9/11, I had never participated in a blood drive. They always kind of creeped me out. But the bravery and sacrifice of others on that day put that discomfort in perspective. Since then, I have donated every time I’ve become eligible, so that the insides of each of my elbows have become dotted with scars that inevitably a few of the needles have left over the last 16 years. Many of those donations have been here at OSU, where there’s always a blood drive happening soon if not now, whether at the Thompson library, the Ohio Union, the Wexner Center, or numerous classroom buildings. Whenever I donate, I remind myself that the evil actions of a few people on that day prompted me to do a small, good thing on a regular basis, and I’m sure it’s done the same for many others.

  2. After 9/11, I felt saddened and horrified, because our nation suffered a great loss and the world was under near-constant threat of similar tragedies. The grief and anger engendered before and after 9/11 has served to, in part, unite us and, in part, divide us.

    After 9/11, I endeavor to draw from that loss to build bridges in the hopes that we can translate the anger and divisiveness motivating that terrible day and the resulting wars toward a sense of hope, unity, empathy and peace.

  3. On 9/11 I was a graduate student at the Munich University of Technology, Germany, and about to finish my Ph.D. My major advisor, Professor Georg Karg, had referred me to Tahira Hira at Iowa State University and was looking forward to my postdoc with her starting in Spring of 2002. Graduation and my trip to the U.S. was very much on my mind when we heard the news about the attacks. I went home to watch it on TV. I still remember how I asked Simone, a friend who also worked on her Ph.D. in my department, to help me write an email to Tahira. We were both lost for words on how to express our thoughts and hopes that none of her family was hurt.

  4. 9/11 impacted me enormously. As a former New Yorker I knew the area, had been in the buildings, and had friends who worked there. Although I was (luckily) in Columbus when it happened, I visited a few weeks later and was touched by the many missing posters on the subway walls, which became makeshift memorials as time went on and recovery seemed less and less likely. Residents all over the city, even where my parents lived in Brooklyn, had stories of various kinds including those of finding scorched pieces of paper in the air and yard, which must have come, they thought, from the center…..This summer I visited the newly opened museum at the site. Iti is an amazing collection of artifacts and oral histories. There is one room in which a family member’s voice recalls the life led of their loved ones, as well as how they died. The museum guide told us,be careful of that room, pace yourself, don’t spend more than a half hour there or you won’t be able to leave at all…..the guide also showed us the slurry wall, which was built to hold back the Hudson. After the blast it held although a few tie backs had broken, had it given way, the subways and lower Manhattan would have flooded. Daniel Libeskind,an architect, had called for keeping that part of the section of that wall, with the water still flowing, as the focal point of the lower level. He said it was the spirit of New York, hurt, weeping even, but not defeated…..

  5. I still remember almost everything about September 11, 2001. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and my roommate came bursting into the room yelling at me to wake up and check the television. “An airplane crashed in downtown, slammed into a building!” I was stunned. We turned on the television. Then, we went onto our roof where we had a view of the financial district. I still remember how surreal it felt. As if we were in a movie. I kept going back and forth, from the television to the roof to see it happen. I remember it was a beautiful blue sky day with no clouds, with just the wisps of black smoke emanating from the World Trade Center. I remember feeling paralyzed. Our phones stopped working. The subways were closed. Then downtown was off limits for weeks. In the aftermath, I realized that not only had the world changed, but so did I. Seeing the destruction up front, seeing the footage of the first responders, watching the entire city mobilize to help . . . they all helped me see how shallow my existence as a freelance computer programmer were. And so, shortly after 9/11, I enrolled in a Master’s teacher certification program to become a public school middle teacher. So you could say 9/11 impacted me by steering me towards education.

  6. There I was, with my students. It was at that moment, I realized how much students need you and how we are all one community. When they are on campus, they are away from their family. They needed to process the event, describe their fears, talk through the meaning, anxiously await phone calls from loved ones, and cry about the country, and mourn the loss of loved ones.

    At the time, my own children were young. But these college students needed us. By us, I mean the faculty and staff on campus. A major catastrophe had occurred and they were not with their families. We were there for them, however they needed us to be.

    With the sadness came community. Since that time, I have become more patriotic and invested in the workings on the country. Since that time, I try to make connections and not overlook individuals. I try harder to look directly at individuals, whether a clerk or someone on the sidewalk. I am grateful to live in a caring, giving, beautiful country.

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