September 11, 2022
21 years on, here's what comes to mind as we look back on that horrible day....
Over the summer I saw something on the news that I found rather distressing. The 9/11 Tribute Museum was closing down due to financial losses suffered during the pandemic.
"Financial hardship including lost revenue caused by the pandemic prevents us from generating sufficient funding to continue to operate the physical museum," - Jennifer Adams, co-founder and CEO of the museum
Turns out this is not the National 9/11 Museum which is right there on the site of Ground Zero. That thankfully is still open. According to the National Museum's website..
The 9/11 Tribute Museum and the National September 11th Memorial & Museum are separate non-profit institutions that both share the history of the tragic events that changed the world.
The 9/11 Tribute Museum remembers 9/11 in galleries and on walking tours through the stories of those directly experienced the tragic events – family members who lost loved ones, survivors, Lower Manhattan residents and workers and rescue and recovery workers. It offers visitors, through artifacts, stories, photos and videos, the ability to learn factual information about the events, the unprecedented rescue and recovery operations and the tremendous spirit of resilience and service that arose after the attacks and continues today.
The National September 11 Memorial Museum serves as the country’s principal institution concerned with exploring the implications of the events of 9/11, documenting the impact of those events and exploring 9/11’s continuing significance. The Museum tells the story of 9/11 through interactive technology, archives, narratives and a growing permanent collection of artifacts, stories, photos, video and other materials that shape our shared history.
It's the Tribute Musuem on Greenwich Street that was closed down, it's website still offering virtual tours. And while I was glad to see that the National Museum would remain open, it brought to the fore another big concern that I have expressed here many times over the years on this post.. Will the memory of what happen that day fade so much that we start to actually forget?
Two years ago, when we were still in the throes of the pandemic, I thought maybe the anniversary would take a backseat to the thousands we lost to COVID-19. It didn't. We still mourned the victims of COVID as we also remembered the close to 3,000 we lost on 9/11. People still
put flags out on their porches and windows, many of us changed our social media profile pictures to remember.
Today is Sunday, which to me is always a sort of fascinating case study in this. Many of us spend the morning, sitting quietly watching on TV as they read out the names of those who perished on 9/11/01. Down here in Southern Nassau county, there is a multi-faith memorial service in Point Lookout. Tara and I attended that the last time the anniversary landed on Sunday (I believe that was 2016). So maybe we do something like that as well.
But then at 1 PM, many of us are watching as our football teams are having their season openers. On Sunday September 9, 2001, they had it where President George W. Bush stood with a group of kids on the White House Lawn and flipped a coin in the air for each of the games that day. They beamed that into each stadium. The next time I saw the President, he was at Barksdale Air Force base in Louisiana, trying to assure the suddenly shaken nation that America's resolve would pass the test it being put through that morning.
That we can enjoy a football game or any event, sporting or otherwise just hours after the heart wrenching remembrances can surely be a testament to our abilities to keep moving forward. But I still have that nagging feeling that we should be doing more to keep that memory burning.
Many of us now have kids that either weren't born or were very young when this happened, who have only learned about this the way we may have learned about Vietnam and the JFK assassination, or how our folks learned about Pearl Harbor and WWII. Learning history of course is how we keep the memories alive.
Which is why I was so upset to hear that the Tribute museum was closing. Any time we lose something that helps us to remember or helps those who weren't born yet to learn, it's a loss.
But, we will still have the national museum to go to, and yes those magnificent fountains where the foot prints of the Twin Towers are, will always be there, always a place to go to pray, to mourn, to reflect
And most of all, To Never Forget.
God Bless those we lost that day, and those they left behind.
God Bless the rescue workers we've lost and we continue to lose to cancer and other diseases from the air they breathed in in the weeks after the attacks.
God Bless those of us who lived through it, and those of us who didn't but have had it as an everyday part of their lives.
and
God Bless America
Weekly Mail returns September 18, 2022
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