Remembering 9/11 - The Days Following - An Editorial By: J. Joseph
Growing up in New York City, I learned to love being around the Twin Towers at an early age. I would walk up to the buildings and look up as if in some strange way I owned them. As a teenager in the 90s, I had worked for a travel agency and had made deliveries in the Towers. The elevators were the craziest part of the journey moving at speeds I was not used to feeling in my stomach. To see the towers crumble to the ground was sickening, I felt that same strange motion in my stomach an elevator ride that did not end. The day of the attacks I was minutes from being 5 blocks always when the desire to check my email made me late and discover the first plane. And yet, I still was going to school that day until while walking towards the area the second plane hit and I turned around. The explosion caught me off guard because I saw the fire and smoke but I did not see the second plane until I was home watching the replay on TV.
I purposely did not write and post prior to 9-11 out of providing substack readers with a real connection to the vision of this piece. Days after 9-11 was some of the best days of my life and showed America at its best with pride. The city and the country was at a level a peace that has not been duplicated since. New York City had a prayer service at Yankees stadium where multiple leaders of faith came together to pray. As a college student my classes were cancelled for a month due to the campus being 5 blocks from the site. We had a service at the Lambs Church in Times Square where we had communion together as a school. After the service a group of friends and I began to worship in the train station causing the entire subway shutdown. There was a shrine of pictures all over the wall of missing people a sense of mental and spiritual numbness reigned all over.
We started singing.
Onlookers circled around us as train conductors watched closely negating their job as hundred of voices harmonized as one huge choir. People began to cry as emotional baggage that filled heavy hearts were opened and mended as prayer filled a subway station. After 9-11, New York City was on one accord, crime was at its lowest point, prayer was an acceptable practice as churches were filled regularly. It should not take the death of thousands to bring us closer unless we look back on that day to re-ignite those days.
Think. Relive. Come Together. Share Pain. Never Forget
In Memory of Mario Santoro, No blood no foul
J. Joseph is the Host of Reason to Live Podcast and Co-host of Trey and Jay on You Tube. He is Motivational Speaker, Life Coach, Paralegal, Criminal Justice Advocate, Business and Defendant Consultant, Author, Writer and Not-For-Profit Strategist. Subscribe to the Reason to Live Podcast, A Look Behind True Crimes Curtain JJosephRTL@gmail.com @Reason2Live.podcast