September 11, 2020
19 years on, here's what comes to mind as we look back on that horrible day....
Last month, I got a Facebook invite to join a group called Bring Back the Light Tribute.
On August 13, the National September 11th Memorial and Museum announced that they would not shine the two beams of light into the New York City sky because of concerns over COVID-19. According to the committee, it takes a crew of about 40 workers to install and operate the lights.
When the lights first appeared in March, 2002, 6 months after the attacks, I remember Mayor Bloomberg saying at the time that the city couldn't afford to have the lights come on every night. I remember there was an outcry over that as well. But that was nothing compared to what came from this decision.
Within hours of the announcement, that FB page was created, within days, it had close to 10,000 members. I was scrolling through my News Feed, and every post was someone putting in their $0.02 about this decision, and none of them were in favor of it. It got to be where the only posts I was seeing was about these lights. There were GoFundMe pages and Change.org petitions started.
By Saturday the 15th, the decision had been reversed.
Governor Cuomo announced that the state would provide the resources needed to ensure the health of the workers. Also, Bloomberg offered to pick up some of the costs.
I have two thoughts on this. First it's another example of how the worst of times can bring out the best of people. There was an issue, and instead of politicians making it worse, a couple of them figured out a way to fix the issue. I realize Bloomy writing a check is being done as a private citizen, but I also believe his having been mayor for 8 (um I mean 12) years gave him an understanding of why this was so important.
Which leads me to my second point.
If anything was going to push what happened 19 years ago today to the back burner, it would have been this pandemic. COVID-19 has killed over 180,000 people over the past 6 months. It had shut down businesses, schools, sports, movies etc. We are still nowhere near the end of it, and in many states, the numbers are going back up.
But we haven't forgotten, have we? Not even close.
The hurt of 9/11 is still as strong as it was 19 years ago. It's still stirs all the same feelings: anger, fright, patriotism. And sadness.
Always the sadness. It never goes away.
When I last looked, there were almost 200,000 members in that group. All these people, knowing that as bad as this pademic has been, we can never forget what happened that day. All these people who still feel that sadness to one degree or another.
And maybe I'm wasting my time here, but I feel it's worth mentioning again that if/when we ever get past this pandemic, that we can take lessons from how we acted after 9/11. The makeshiift staging area at Shea Stadium that helped get supplies down to Ground Zero, the blood banks that had to turn away donors because they were full, the general sense of togetherness that came about in those first few days after the attacks. I'm sure there are folks who will tell you that was just a figment of our imaginations.
It wasn't. It happened. We all saw it.
And when those lights go on tonight, that's what I'll be thinking about.
That's what I'll be praying for.
Shine on
God Bless all who we lost that day, and those who were left behind.
God Bless all who we lost this year due to COVID and all those who were left behind
God Bless the first responders and front line workers who were there for both
and God Bless America
Weekly Mail Returns next Sunday
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