Remembering the City

It is raining today, and I can't help but think it's fitting, given the mood we all feel each year on this day. But I don't feel it perhaps the way I should. Most of my 9/11 sadness is selfish.

I didn't lose anyone close to me on that day, or in the following days, and I thank God that my father, a Port Authority police officer, had come home from work that morning and wasn't in the City when it came crashing down around everyone. Despite his long hours over the next year, and the lasting effects on his lungs and psyche, he made it out safely. I know how blessed my family is, and my heart goes out to those who weren't as lucky.

But I've always felt that the City was part of life that my father had given me. We had a backstage pass to the action -- cop car rides from Weehawken through the Lincoln Tunnel and to the front door of our destination. I sat in the back of that car each time with my face pressed up against the window, in awe of my proximity to all that magic.

The City isn't the same now, and neither am I. In September 2001, I was just beginning my sophomore year of college as far away from that City as New Jersey would allow, and I'm still stuck in this place. Most of the people I've encountered here have little appreciation for the City I love, and Philadelphia is the third-rate replacement they offer me. As much as I thank God that I wasn't personally affected by that September day eight years ago, I'm still bitter that I'm not there. As close as I felt to New York after that day, why am I still so far away?

Today, I am sad that my son will never see the most beautiful skyline as it once was. That he will never peer down from the observation deck of the public Tower -- or from the other Tower, the one with the antenna, where my father brought me when I was young. I'm sad that he'll never know the New York I have -- the magical place less than a half-hour from home. Because it's a lot more than a half-hour from his home. I want to be sure I can still give him that experience.





















Photo of Ground Zero, taken on a day in New York, 08/11/07.