Remembering 9/11

Ten years after 9/11, I went to visit the memorial in New York. It was a cold and dreary day, so unlike the day of the attack, which, when I saw the incredibly blue skies, I was sure was going to be one of the ten best days of the year.

The line for security was long and I found myself behind a family of tourists from Spain. My Spanish would not have been good enough for a conversation, but I asked if any of them spoke English and one of the teenagers said she did. “Why had they come to the memorial,” I asked. “Did they have a personal connection?” “No,” she answered. “But because it was part of the history of this country, they felt it was important to come and pay their respects.”  I was touched by their sentiments, which captured how much of the world shared our grief immediately after the tragedy.

I had come to find the name of someone I knew, Ginger Risco Nelson. I had been in a fellowship program with her husband and had attended their wedding. Now I wanted to personally acknowledge her loss by standing and reflecting in front of her name.

Since I had looked up her name in the directory, I knew the panel number, but not how to find it. When I asked a guide, he told me that section might not be open because they were planting trees before the opening of the museum. However, since I was there for someone specific, he would escort me and make sure I located her.

He did, and then left me alone with my sadness. Such a vibrant life, now a name etched in dark bronze.

I was grateful for the kindness of the strangers from abroad and from the guide. There, in that sacred, almost silent space, soothed by the falling water, I remembered.