9/11 Anniversary

I am happy that this anniversary of 9/11 is a Saturday this year as I get to have my husband home instead of going into Manhattan to work at his Wall Street job.

I've had a stressful week and I'll have a busy weekend, and to be honest have no room in my brain for reliving or revisiting the events of 9/11. I do not need an anniversary or its associated ceremonies or media coverage to remind me because my emotions about that event and the issues are alive and active in my mind every day, they have not gone dormant. That day was emotional and horrible for our family.

The long story short is my husband was supposed to be in a training class in one of the WTC buildings that morning but he skipped it to finish a project his boss was nagging him about. The rest of the people at that meeting did get out alive but they had to run for their lives while debris and dust rained down upon them.

Sadly, a co-worker at a different meeting in one of the main buildings did evacuate and ran for his life, seeing the jumpers et cetera and had post traumatic stress syndrome and depression requiring medication and therapy for years. My husband's daily communications with that man for years afterward were grim reminders of the long-lasting damage that a terrorist attack can have upon those who were survivors at the scene.

I don't blog here about my feelings about radical Muslims, I just don't want to get into it.

I feel the danger of terrorism is real and continues, it is not over. A reminder too close to home was the recent event.  Not too far from my home lived the "Times Square Bomber" whose bombing attempt failed due to using one wrong ingredient in the bomb-making process. What is tricky is on the one hand we Americans are supposed to not think ill of anyone who looks like they are of Middle Eastern descent or anyone who we know is Muslim yet you never do know if someone who seems to have a typical American life is actually a radical making plans for a terrorist attack. Also troublesome to me is how people fail to take action even when signs are there that something is amiss: in 20/20 hindsight the neighbors of the "Times Square Bomber" I think regretted not taking action as there were multiple odd things going on with that man at his rented property.

I'm glad there are some special events happening today, it will serve to maybe wake up those who need waking up.