16 years on...the 9/11 blog entry.

So here we are, 16 years after 9/11 and I'm writing my annual blog about that day.

This year I'm finding it hard to organize my thoughts about this anniversary.  As more time passes, it loses a little impact and I didn't think that was even possible given the scope of that day.

The best comparison to that is the anniversary of the Murrah Building bomb in Oklahoma City, a terrorist attack that happened much closer to home and was much more local in relation to where I live than New York, Washington DC, or Pennsylvania.

That anniversary,  April 19th, is almost back to a normal day by and large,  though there are solemn ceremonies, remembrances and and reading of the names of the victims, that's about it. 

In thinking about it, it's probably a good thing that it's become more of a simple remembrance than anything more elaborate.  I don't think it's a casual thing by any means, especially when it comes to the family's of the dead,  but it's become simpler as time goes forward.

Will 9/11 ever get that way?  Who knows.

Maybe it's best for the grief process that way.  They say time heals all wounds,  or at least takes the edge off.  This country is at that point now with Oklahoma City, and maybe in the future it will be that way with 9/11. 

It will likely take a lot longer to get there though.

This country has come a long way since then,  that's undeniable.  Hopefully,  it can continue progressing.

9/11 annual entry: Memories of silence.

It's weird.

Of all the remembrances I have of 9/11 by far the strongest and most striking was the utter silence of that day.

Once they grounded the aircraft nationwide a very unsettling silence fell over this part of the country that felt like it had form and substance, like you could almost poke it with your finger.. 

It's not unlike the sensation when you ears pop, but heavier somehow.  The more I think about it, the air itself had a thick stillness that almost made it hard to breathe. 

The other thing that stands out about 9/11/2001 is how deserted the streets of Tulsa and Broken Arrow were that evening after everything had calmed down.

After I got home from work that day my parents and I went out to dinner and traffic was practically nonexistent.  A few cars here and there but it was decidedly less than one might expect on a weeknight. 

To put it in perspective, there was barely any cars parked at a Walmart Supercenter.  It was almost like it was closed for Christmas or something.

My final memory is the most unsettling.

I remember going to bed that night wondering what was "next".  If what we had been through that day was just the opening act and something more was on the horizon.   It played in my head like a nuclear war made for TV movie in my head over and over again.

It was a feeling of dread I hadn't ever experienced before or since.  

And here we are 15-years later looking back at the day as a moment in history. 

It was pointed out a few days ago that there are freshmen in high school who will study 9/11 as something historic that took place before they were born.

That made me pause.  But in both a good and a bad way.

My son was 21 months old when 9/11 happened, so he was alive in the same way I was when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.  I was roughly the same age, give or take when that happened.  He can speak to being alive on 9/11 but he can't speak to his feelings or what he was doing then.

I was told that I witnessed the first moonwalk but was too wrapped up playing patty cake with my grandfather when "One small step for a man" was taken.

The things you think about on days like this.