Dear Twin Towers,
Fifteen years ago today, you became no more. Since I bought a picture of you until today, your image stayed visible in my living room. For at least the last several years, this picture sat on my piano. I would look at it and remember how much I liked you. You, along with your plaza downstairs, were my favorite architecture in New York City, perhaps the world. Today, this picture has been removed from sight.
Nearly two thousand people who were inside and downstairs died that day fifteen years ago. You smothered them, engulfing them in fire and gravity when you imploded, which you were designed to do. Some had jumped to escape the heat. Others were trapped. Many around the world called hospitals searching for those people, hoping they were alive. But I knew they were no longer in their flesh. Yet when I answered some of their calls, I could not say so. For this I have suffered all this time.
Today, fifteen years later on this September 11, my suffering is less painful. Hence, I put your image away in a box. I might bring it out to remember again how I used to sit in your plaza when the sun was out and enjoy watching the hundreds of people who passed by or sat on benches around the Atlas sculpture. In those days, I used to think about the thousands of people I didn’t see who were perhaps out getting lunch or stuck in their offices upstairs. Today, I am moving on. In spite of the injustice, the terror, the lost lives, and the guilt of those who could have prevented the disaster, I am finding healing and ways to share what I have learned so that the world might feel safer; maybe teach people how to heal their emotional scars.
Thank you for standing tall, your iconography and impression, your housing of businesses and tourism. Thanks for the memories, like swing dancing at Windows On the World upstairs near the top.
Now I let your memory rest as I continue to heal and help others heal from their traumas.