Remembering the Tragedy of 9/11

Remembering the Tragedy of 9/11

from Representing 9/11 and the War on Terror by Kathy Cook

Looking at this image helps me to remember the tragedy of 9/11 and the loss of so many lives in such a small span of time for some reason that no one knew of then. Even though I do not know these women or what they went through or the losses that they experienced on this day, I can imagine. I can imagine that these women crying in could have lost a son or daughter or sister or brother. These women possibly lost friends and peers.

This picture really hits home to me the reality of this terrorist act. At the time of the attack I was in 5^th grade English class with my teacher Mrs. Church. She went over to the television after getting a telephone call through the school phone and let us watch, as the towers burned and crumpled to the ground. Being only 10 years old, excited about my upcoming birthday, I was confused and thought that we were watching some kind of educational program that they would explain later. It wasn’t until they said that school was getting out that I realized that something was wrong. But, I couldn’t quite consume and comprehend the reality of this devastating tragedy. These women, in this picture, experienced 9/11 in its true realistic form. Grasping the American flag to her bosom, she weeps for the souls that so unexpectedly met their end and had no clue as to why. She weeps for strangers, family, friends, or loved ones whom she will never be able to see their smiling face or hear their lovable laugh. She will not be able to share stories with them or hear about their clumsy newborn baby taking their first steps. She will not be able to give them a proper burial because no one can find their bodies. She weeps because she knows that some of them plummeted from the windows of the World Trade Center calling their loved ones to say goodbye before they took the final plunge to death. She weeps for the lives that ended so suddenly and without warning and the ones that she never knew. She weeps for their pain and for their families’ pain. She weeps for their souls and lives that should have lasted a full lifetime. The souls of this event didn’t deserve to die. But, their lives have been departed from this Earth because of men who were willing to die for a cause that they believed with their entire being and who bathed in the illusion that they were doing the greater good in the name of their deity. The faces of these women show their traumatic loss and how this loss will be an unbearable wound that will never fully heal. I can only imagine the turmoil felt on this day for the people who were frightened, panicked, shocked, and confused by what happened on this most memorable day in the twenty-first century of America.

The emotions brought on by this event are emotions that cannot be changed for Americans. The citizens represented here are few of many who underestimated the malicious drive that humans can have to annihilate figures so symbolic to numerous cultures in this world. Women, men, and children all experienced this horrific tragedy and this photograph expresses the anguish that many felt on this day. The feelings that were felt after this day did not pass and go away like a bad dream, but stayed in place and created something that the terrorist of this attack hadn’t expected...a thirst for revenge.