Postcards From Across the Pond

When I thought of all the anniversaries falling between meeting my wife and actually marrying my wife, with a view to stretching the season of commemorations surrounding my “Twenty-Five Years an Expat” extravaganza, I had not anticipated mentioning this one. But here we are, and the day, on its twenty-fifth occasion, merits remembering.

It’s one of those world-shaking events, where everyone can remember where they were when they heard. It’s like remembering where you were when JFK was shot. (You do remember where you were at 12:30PM Central time on the 22^nd of November 1963, don’t you?) I was in third grade, which would make me eight years old. It was early afternoon and we were in our classrooms when the news went ‘round. We weren’t told much, just that the President had been shot. Then they sent us home.

As I joined the queue to get on my bus, a classmate behind me told everyone that a communist with a sub-machinegun had burst into his office and machinegunned him to death. I don’t recall giving that story serious consideration, and it serves to show that misinformation did not begin with the Internet.

As for the 9/11 attacks, I was at work. It was in the morning, and I had not been at my desk for long and was, instead of working, booking a flight to the UK to visit the woman I had become smitten with six weeks earlier. Before the transaction finalised, a newsflash popped up on my screen saying an airplane had hit one of the twin towers. This made me pause, but not panic, because I recalled a news story from years before of a plane hitting the Empire State Building (this occurred in July 1945). It was, I thought, simply a tragic accident; I had no reason to think otherwise.

But then, fifteen minutes later, a second plane hit the other tower, and I knew something was up.

The morning became a blur after that: people clustered around screens, sketchy news reports filtered in, fruitless and generally erroneous speculation circulated, and mounting disbelief gave way to tears as the towers fell. Then they sent us home, and I drove through the eerily empty streets of Albany, back to my flat in Clifton Park, where I sat on my balcony, staring in disbelief at the empty sky.

In the days that followed, more reports came in: the hopelessly optimistic, the deceitfully opportunistic, and then the awful truth. A nation mourned, fear mounted, anger grew, rage ignited.

And twenty-five years later, here we are.

My wife and I often note—with a tinge of sadness—that we met during the final days when the world made sense. On 9/11 everything changed, and the path back to what was is hopelessly lost, while the path forward is dark and festooned with danger.

I don’t mean to be pessimistic—and I sincerely hope the observances today point to a brighter future—but no matter what lies ahead, look for joy, think before you act, and for the love of all things holy, be kind to one another, because we are all we have.