Granados Column: Remembering Sept. 11, 2001

This week marks the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on our nation.

It is a time for reflection.

I, like many of us, remember where I was that day. I was living in Raleigh, N.C., and attending a local community college.

National Public Radio played in my car during the 20-minute drive to campus. A voice broke into whatever program I was listening to and announced that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

The speculation was that it was some sort of accident. My sister worked at the Twin Towers, I thought. I would have to remember to ask her about the incident.

And then the voice on the radio said a second plane had crashed into the second tower.

Any discussion of an accident ended there.

I drove to school and told every friend I met along the way to class what was happening — most people had not yet heard.

In my biology class, I told my teacher that my sister worked in the World Trade Center. She gave me a hug and sent me home.

I spent that afternoon draped on the couch, watching the repetitive images of two buildings collapsing and turning to dust.

As we all know, there was more to it than that — a plane down over Pennsylvania; one smashing into the Pentagon; and plenty of fear about the possibility of more.

I tried calling my sister, but she did not answer. The rest of my family had not heard from her either. As I watched the devastation on the scene, I thought that my sister must be dead. This could not be
happening.

Fortunately, my sister did eventually call. She was fine. She hadn’t worked in the Twin Towers; I was mistaken.

She had worked at a building across the street — one that caught fire during the day’s events and was later condemned — but her company had transferred her elsewhere in the city a month earlier.

I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the TV. The images were no longer so personal.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 have taken their place as the uniting trauma of the modern generation. Just as the assassination of John F. Kennedy elicited the question of “Where were you the day he
died?”, 9/11 conjures a similar rush of memory whenever it is mentioned.

But it is important to distinguish between the shared social trauma of a terrorist attack perpetrated on our shores, and the personal terror experienced by those who were there or had loved ones who were
and who possibly died.

I remember an episode of the FX channel’s show, “Rescue Me,” in which one main character, a New York City firefighter, goes to a support group for people dealing with the trauma of 9/11.

Upon discovering that he is the only one in the room who actually had any direct experience with the terrorist attack, the main character becomes irate at the support group interlopers — they are people
claiming pain that is not their own.

Sept. 11 affected us all. But for most of us, the effect was that which came from watching it on TV and reading about it in the paper. No doubt, the event dealt a psychic blow to us all, but to those who
were there, or who lost loved ones, the blow’s impact went far deeper than the rest of us will ever know.

I consider myself lucky — my trauma was imaginary and swiftly passed. My sister was alive and I could view the event with the emotional distance of somebody not directly involved.

Many in this area don’t have that luxury, having lost friends and family at the Pentagon.

As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I hope that we will all take the time to remember that day and to honor those who died, those who knew them and those who were there and survived.

For the rest of us, the event is a historical marker in our lives, but not necessarily a personal pain, and we should recognize that fact.

A terrible thing happened on Sept. 11, 2001, but despite how it may feel sometimes, it did not directly happen to us all. The anniversary should be for those to whom it did.

Editorial Page Editor Alex Granados can be reached at 703-878-8069 or agranados@insidenova.com.