Phantom Twins

9/11/2001

It's official and I suppose it's the natural way of things. The tenth anniversary of 9/11 came and went last year, and the greatest tragedy on American soil has now been relegated to the history books. On my Internet news page this morning, the date warranted no mention, appearing only in the upper right hand corner in small print, as all dates do.

Ancient history, maybe to some, but the books on 9/11 are by no means closed. The other day, my friend showed me a picture of thirty or so smiling military wives, dressed to the nines in whatever finery they could afford on an officer's salary, drunk on cheap wine (and giddy from the rare excuse to hire a baby sitter for the evening). Their husbands are on the brink of deployment to Afghanistan. My friend could not help but wonder out loud how many of those beautiful smiles would be forever wiped away by the time next year rolls around, how many young widows to be were in that picture.

Ready or not, it's a day that will simply live in infamy, albeit quietly. Scars remain but open wounds have long ago faded. On my first visit to lower Manhattan in the fall of 2001, in the post 9/11 world, the southern tip of the island was an uninhabitable hole. Except for the bold and bright memorials to firefighters and other Americans who had lost their lives, and a veritable sea of yellow hard hats, color had been all but wiped away from the area. It was all dust and mud, a landscape of ash where business and commerce had once thrived. The World Trade Center, the buildings that had risen up during my childhood and shifted the city's skyline -- not to mention its heart and soul -- southward, had been destroyed in an instant. It took a long time for me to be able to gaze over to where they had stood, across the river, and not imagine I could still see the outlines of the towering twins.

On my most recent visit to the area -- some time early this year -- I marveled at the transformation. Brand new towers glisten as they soar over the site. Memorial banners have long been torn down, replaced by sparkling store fronts and brightly lit marquis from new luxury hotels. Tours spill into the Memorial, long lines of people for whom 9/11 happened somewhere far away, for some before they were born. There are still plenty of hard hats milling around, but it's all about building, no longer about repair. I wonder if the Officers and their wives, the ones smiling at the ball, see it that way.

Today I happen to be having lunch with one of the first people I saw that day after tearing myself away from the television and the telephone. My brother had been describing the scene from his office window only blocks away from what would soon be known as Ground Zero, and we were still trying to figure out where my mother -- always in the thick of things -- had disappeared to. But life had to go on, at least here in suburban Chicago, so out I went. My friend and I barely knew each other, much less what to say. We were both, like everyone else, trying to grasp what had happened as we tried to preserve our idea of normalcy and get our daughters to their dance class.

My guess is my friend and I, all these years later, will reminisce today. About the shock that seemed to alter our world that morning. About our sense of disbelief and despair. About our daughters, who have long since hung up their tap shoes and had no idea that day of how much things had changed while they danced.