Our Safety Zone~Breached
I don’t think any of us thought this tragedy would ever happen. We all live in our little safety zone because it always happens to someone else. What will it take to make us all understand that that someone else could be me or you. Today could literally be the last day of your life. We just plod along, going to work, going shopping, going home or out to party~whatever. It’s not real, we think, it’s just the media.
I remember quite clearly the events of 9/11, a friend called and told me to turn on the TV. After doing so, I thought this is a joke, right? Someone has got a sick sense of humor, right? This cannot be happening, then the second plane struck, then the building collapsed, and then they showed people running with this big cloud of dust and debris chasing them. Those were the best special effects I have ever seen! That wasn’t real…it was surreal. Shock took over my whole family as we sat glued to the TV, watching these scenes over and over. On every channel, there was no escape. Our precious, irreplaceable husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends and strangers; our precious Pentagon, our precious Twin Towers; gone, just like that. I felt a strange heaviness as the truth started to wash over me, reality had to be embraced as much as I fought it. I cried many times over the weeks and months to follow. I was spared the loss of a family member or friend, but my heart still ached. I can’t explain it really. I just couldn’t get images out of my mind like the many people went back into the building to help other get out and wound up dying for their heroic efforts. I just couldn’t help but think how vulnerable we really are. I was terrified, how long do we all really have? My job took me to NYC on an almost daily basis, wow this is way to close to my safety zone. Living in Connecticut, we jumped in the car. I didn’t want to see ground zero up close, I am not interested in any kind of gore or human suffering, I just wanted to see something with my own eyes. We drove down and as we crossed the GW Bridge into New Jersey all you could see was an enormous dark grey cloud billowing up and covering the whole city. You couldn’t see any buildings per say, just an occasional glimpse when the wind blew just right. A week later we drove down again, the dark grey cloud, although thinned, still rose up as if in waves. The skyline was visible, and empty. It has never been the same, not for me or anyone else. They can put up new buildings, repair others, even put up as many memorials as they want; that day America and Americans changed forever. We all procrastinate to some degree, well so do the powers that be, we all think we have all the time we need to start that next week. Katrina is just another example to brutally show us we don’t have the time. We aren’t ready for another terrorist attack, not on a national or local level. We aren’t ready for our most unpredictable and elusive enemy: Mother Nature. Many people and agencies knew the problems, but they didn’t act immediately because we have time to start it next week…and so on it goes.
Until we all wake up we will continue to walk on eggshells and have to wonder every day “Is this my last?”
-posted by Kimberly Brown @ 9/15/2005 08:16:00 PM
I remember quite clearly the events of 9/11, a friend called and told me to turn on the TV. After doing so, I thought this is a joke, right? Someone has got a sick sense of humor, right? This cannot be happening, then the second plane struck, then the building collapsed, and then they showed people running with this big cloud of dust and debris chasing them. Those were the best special effects I have ever seen! That wasn’t real…it was surreal. Shock took over my whole family as we sat glued to the TV, watching these scenes over and over. On every channel, there was no escape. Our precious, irreplaceable husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends and strangers; our precious Pentagon, our precious Twin Towers; gone, just like that. I felt a strange heaviness as the truth started to wash over me, reality had to be embraced as much as I fought it. I cried many times over the weeks and months to follow. I was spared the loss of a family member or friend, but my heart still ached. I can’t explain it really. I just couldn’t get images out of my mind like the many people went back into the building to help other get out and wound up dying for their heroic efforts. I just couldn’t help but think how vulnerable we really are. I was terrified, how long do we all really have? My job took me to NYC on an almost daily basis, wow this is way to close to my safety zone. Living in Connecticut, we jumped in the car. I didn’t want to see ground zero up close, I am not interested in any kind of gore or human suffering, I just wanted to see something with my own eyes. We drove down and as we crossed the GW Bridge into New Jersey all you could see was an enormous dark grey cloud billowing up and covering the whole city. You couldn’t see any buildings per say, just an occasional glimpse when the wind blew just right. A week later we drove down again, the dark grey cloud, although thinned, still rose up as if in waves. The skyline was visible, and empty. It has never been the same, not for me or anyone else. They can put up new buildings, repair others, even put up as many memorials as they want; that day America and Americans changed forever. We all procrastinate to some degree, well so do the powers that be, we all think we have all the time we need to start that next week. Katrina is just another example to brutally show us we don’t have the time. We aren’t ready for another terrorist attack, not on a national or local level. We aren’t ready for our most unpredictable and elusive enemy: Mother Nature. Many people and agencies knew the problems, but they didn’t act immediately because we have time to start it next week…and so on it goes.
Until we all wake up we will continue to walk on eggshells and have to wonder every day “Is this my last?”
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