On 9-11

[thebratqueen]

I'm working today. That was a deliberate choice on my part. Last year I couldn't. It wasn't possible. I had to be out in the real world, such as it was, and really feel what was happening.

This morning I reread what I wrote last year about 9-11. Some parts of it still make me cry. Some parts of 9-11 still make me cry too.

It's such a huge thing. Which is quite possibly this year's winner for Most Obvious Statement, but like I said last year, as far as this is concerned I'm 3. I'm 3 and I can't understand it. I get small bits. It's a canyon, I get maybe a grain of sand.

Last year I was angry. On 9-11-02 I was sad. It took me a year, I think, to really cry about it. Cry and cry for it. To finally actually mourn.

This year I'm not mourning. Not because it isn't sad, but because mourning isn't a stage I can stay in.

There was a newspaper article not so long ago about a woman who lost her son when the Towers fell. She was having problems because she wanted to create a monument on his grave, one that represented the Towers, to honor what her son had gone through. The cemetery wouldn't let her because the monument would violate their rules about how high displays were allowed to be. She could have a monument but not that monument. She was protesting this decision, I'm fairly sure courts were going to be involved, the whole nine yards.

I read that article and I felt for her, but at the same time I noticed that she visited that cemetery every day. Not a day went by that she wasn't spending quality time with her lost son and I couldn't help but wonder to myself if she was really doing the right thing.

Not so long after someone wrote a letter to the editor. It was another mother, who had lost her own son. She wanted to let the first woman know that she knew that pain, she sympathized, but that this was not the way to go. Her son wouldn't want to be remembered for dying in 9-11. He'd want to be remembered for who he was.

That's where I am.

I don't want to stay focused on the moment of horror. I don't want to stay locked in that day of Hell. That's not what we're meant to focus on, I don't think.

Not forget it. It is obnoxiously redunant and obvious to say "never forget". It is impossible to forget. Forgetting is not the problem.

It's what we do with what we know.

I've got three nieces. One who was alive - and in Manhattan - when the Towers were struck. Two who weren't even born yet. As time goes on, I may have more, or even kids of my own.

And I figure at some point they're going to ask me about 9-11. They're going to want to know what it was like, and what we took away from it.

And I'm going to tell them: we took away greatness. We took away the knowledge - the fact - that deep down humanity has goodness. That when push comes to shove we can forget our bullshit, petty squabbling and stop giving a shit about the little details because in the big picture, the important one, we remember that we're all in this together.

What's 9-11? It's firefighters and brave civilians. It's blood donations and piles of clothing. It's those who died, and those who lived.

I'm lucky. I'm fortunate enough to be in a place where I can do this now. Maybe, someday, everyone will. But in the meanwhile I'm going to have eggs, yawn, brush my hair, drink some fruit punch and be glad that I'm alive, and that the goodness in people is alive with me.

It was true then, and it bears repeating:

The reason I don’t despair is because this attack happened. It’s not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream. Whatever barriers we've put up are gone even if it's momentary. We're judging people by not the color of their skin but the content of their character. You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They’ve gotten together and their extraordinary guile…and their wit and their skill." It's a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters, these policemen and people from all over the country, literally, with buckets rebuilding. That's extraordinary. That's why we've already won. It's light. It's democracy. We've already won. They can't shut that down. They live in chaos and chaos…it can't sustain itself. It never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying.

The view from my apartment was the World Trade Center and now it's gone. They attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity and strength and labor and imagination and commerce and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that. -- Jon Stewart