I sit on my couch at home, by myself. I look at the date on my phone: August 25th, 2011. There are 17 days until the world remembers the 10th anniversary of the events of 9/11. And I do not know what to do.
I'd like to say that I'm planning a trip to New York: that I'll embark on a pilgrimage to the closest thing our country has to hallowed ground. I'd like to post on Facebook about how I plan to stand with my brothers, and remember the heroism and sacrifice that has defined the fire service for the past ten years; that I'll put on my dress blues, and my memorial pin, and represent my department with pride.
I'd like to tell my friends and family that I am proud of the 343 men and women, brothers and sisters of mine, who gave their lives on that day, and how I aspire to be like them, because "It's what we do.". I'd like to watch stirring made for TV specials about September 11th, with dramatic montages of firefighters racing to the rescue, set to patriotic music that brings a tear to every eye.
But I can't.
This is why. This is 9/11 to me.
I feel tired. I feel a deep, dark sense of loss. I feel an ache within me that does not subside by putting a Twin Towers sticker on my helmet, or a "Never Forget" bumper sticker on my car. I feel a touch, just a miniscule, microscopic inkling of what the families of those firefighters who lost their lives do. I cannot, in my darkest hour, come close to imagining what it is like to put on FDNY bunkers every day and remember how many of our family was lost. Or what it was like to comb through the wreckage, breathing the choking dust, hearing the cries for help, while you search for your fellow firefighters....and almost pray that you don't find what's left.
I feel tired. Because as the 10th anniversary of that attack grows closer, I get more and more emails telling me to " Get my FDNY commemorative t-shirt before it's too late". Because every time I turn on the TV, I see a commercial for a "Very special inside look at the events of 9/11". I feel tired because everywhere I turn, there is someone who is trying to put into words something that cannot be expressed. Something that those of us in the fire service feel in our very bones, something that tells us that there is pride, there is honor, there is DUTY in what our firefighters did that day. But there is also this.
There is loss. There is something that is missing now. There is a part of our brotherhood that cannot be replaced. There are men and women, fathers, sons, sisters and wives, who will never answer the alarm bell again. It IS what we do. It IS our duty. It is heroic, and proud, and everything that symbolizes the ultimate sacrifice that a firefighter knows he may someday make; the willing trade of risking your life for the chance to save another's. But it is also man kneeling in a dusty street, with tears in his eyes, as he realizes that he left a part of himself and everything he is in that hole in the ground.
I will not be at Ground Zero on September 11th. I will not be watching a TV special, or putting a new "343" decal on my helmet, or telling everyone that I was there for the tenth anniversary, that I was a part of the remembrance. I will be home. I will praying for the families and brotherhoods who lost a part of themselves ten years ago. I will be proud of those who went before me, who defined their very existence by their sacrifice, and I will thank God above that men and women such as these have lived. And I will remember those who are left, those who fell to their knees in the dust as they combed the debris, those that went home to their families at night, and awakened the next day, and the next, and the next, to do it all over again. And I will put on my helmet when the next alarm sounds, and pray with all my heart and soul that God grants me just a little of their strength. I will live for those who we've lost. And I will remember.
"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart,
And you shall see that in truth you are weeping
For that which has been your delight...."
-Kahill Gibran
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