A Letter from Chris Suarez
TWENTY-ONE YEARS LATER
This week I sat on my balcony looking down about forty stories at the 9/11 memorial site. I then looked up some 94 stories to the top of One World Trade Center with the tip just barely recognizable in the clouds. I decided that I finally felt prepared to visit the September 11th Memorial Museum. It had been just over 21 years since the day that seemed to change so many people’s perspective on life, safety, family, community, and the future. I decided it was the right time to bring my family to experience what in small part I had experienced while living in New York decades earlier on that day.
For the first time I watched airport footage of the terrorists that went through security undetected with weapons and explosives. I listened to phone calls from family members on airplanes just minutes before impact to their partners, and parents, and children, and loved ones. I watched previously unseen footage from cameras and cell phones of nearby New Yorkers or visitors. I stared at crushed firetrucks driven by first responders, recovered briefcases and coffee cups and stuffed animals that were never picked up again by their owners. I saw chunks of glass from windows that had been either shattered by the impact of the airplanes or broken out in an attempt by those trapped inside to get fresh air or attempt to jump. I looked at photos of some of the 300 service dogs that worked tirelessly to find possible survivors while providing therapy for those questioning why they were one of the survivors. I looked at a page of someone’s bible fused to a piece of metal and turned to a still readable yet paradoxical passage at Matthew chapter 5, “but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other also to him.”
I stared at photos of some of the 2,977 victims who lost their lives needlessly. Their future looked differently that morning at 8:40am when they left their homes. I’m certain some had fallen in love the night before, had dinner plans for that evening, had a school play or ballgame to attend with their children that afternoon. Some had said I love you as they walked out the door to work, while sadly, others had left home after a senseless argument over something inconsequential.
Sitting in front of the last steel beam rising from the ground from the original tower seemed like a bigger deal than I thought it would be. Looking at the stairs that survived the destruction that thousands climbed down to save their lives - and hundreds of others climbed up in an attempt to save the lives of still others - seemed like a bigger deal than I thought it would be.
A few key lessons showed up as I walked through the halls of the beautifully curated museum.
-We don’t control our future in this world. We can control how we treat others each day. We can control the very last conversation we just had with a loved one or friend, always. We can control how we treat others, always. We can control the joy we choose to feel each day that we wake up, always. We can control the mission and purpose with which we live each day, always.
-Tragedy can be a catalyst for either anger or love, a catalyst for despair or hope, a catalyst for disengagement or playing all in, a catalyst for living in the past or living into the future.
-There is always a way forward. It is never easy, and convincing ourselves that loss is easy doesn’t honor the pain and the struggle from the past. And we are resilient. We are able to do hard things. We are able to move forward. We are able to love after loss.
-There isn’t value in forgetting the past. Remembering what we have been through, reflecting on who we used to be, and reviewing what we have learned is healthy.
I was ready for these lessons this week. I was ready to ensure that my family learned these lessons this week alongside of me. I was ready to make sure I continued to live with these lessons moving forward.
Those lessons have the potential to live on if we allow them to. Perhaps the most touching part of the museum is a long wall with 2,983 blue watercolor squares. Each represents a shade of blue that the artist remembers the sky being on that particular September 11th before a plane struck the first tower. On the wall is affixed a statement from the Roman poet Virgil: “NO DAY SHALL ERASE YOU FROM THE MEMORY OF TIME.” The letters that make up that statement are forged from recovered steel from the original towers.
That statement only remains true as long as our lives are lived differently each day moving forward because of that one day in history.
Chris