9/11 From Across The Pond

Here in the UK, they have been running commercials for 9/11 specials for a few weeks now. Almost all of the major channels have something running during the 10 days surrounding the anniversary. For the last decade, I’ve tried to avoid a lot of the specials that usually run on television. I guess I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to watching 9/11 documentaries. They disturb me on so many levels, which I suppose it should. Whether I believe that it was a true act of outside terrorism or a vast conspiracy by the government doesn’t affect the way I feel when I watch those towers fall. When I see images of those poor souls who chose to jump to their deaths than face the flames and collapsing buildings. The voice mail messages of fathers who knew they would never be home to see their babies again. I can’t bring myself to relive those stories and images by watching them on television.

I’ve also been part of the obligatory “where were you” discussions. In 2001, I was still living on Hancock Street in Tiverton. I had just finished working the summer at a GSRI camp in Kingston, and my now-wife was staying with my family and I until her work visa expired at the end of October. We were asleep after going out the night before. My brother came up to my room, knocked on the door, and told me I needed to come down stairs and watch the news. I did. I didn’t leave the television for more than a few minutes all that day, and most of the next. At 22 years old, I had never seen anything like that before, and never have since.

In October 2001, my wife and I travelled to NYC to catch her flight back to England. We went to the top of the Empire State building, and you could still see the smoke clouds coming up from the site. We discussed going down and viewing the site up close – as close as you could get at that time. I felt the same now as I did then. I couldn’t. There was some part of me that detested the fact that it was a tourist attraction, at its most base form. It’s more than that to me, and it deserves to be respected as such
Tomorrow I will be spending the day with my son and wife. We will go outside, enjoy the fall air, have lunch in a pub, and see old friends. The few people in town who know I am American may say something – offer condolences as they have in the past. I will avoid watching the documentaries on television, and listening to the talk radio programs. I will count my blessings that my friends and family all survived that day, when so many others don’t have the ability to say so. I am blessed that I can avoid as much as possible to stave off the tears and disturbing images, especially here in the UK where the general public isn’t as tuned-in to the day as I imagine it is back home.

I may be able to avoid coverage, occupying my mind with other things, to have a discussion with a friend and not bring it up - but, I will never, ever forget.

This blog post is part of a larger Patch series remembering Sept. 11. To see our region's complete coverage of the 10-year anniversary, you can follow our special Facebook page, Rhode Island Remembers 9/11.