The Southwest Voice

larger view

I watch the images of the attacks played back on TV and I am split.  Part of me wants them to stop showing the scenes.  We have pictures from almost every angle, both ground and air, of the tragedy unfolding.  We see the stills of the people... the firemen, the police officers... the people who are just dazed trying to figure out what they are becoming part of... and those dying.  The people who, while trapped in the buildings took the only option they felt they had left and died on their own terms, having made piece with whatever belief they follow.

Even now, seven years later, there is a hollow place that forms in the pit of my stomach when I think of all those lost and all those left behind to mourn and when I think of the sheer scope of what happened to us then.

I watch the pictures, the videos and hear the recordings of the people making their last calls and the recordings of the radio traffic between the firemen and policemen...  and I wonder, should they keep playing this over and over again.  How is this helping us?

Unfortunately... yes,  I think they should and on every channel.  If for no other reason than to help us understand and remind us that this is something that happened that we must never forget.  We must understand that this tragedy, while it happened in New York, happened to all of us and for that one moment in time, that one part of history, we all were united in the pain of loss. 

I will continue to watch the coverage each year.  I will cry and I will say my silent petitions for those lost, those mourning and those who will never know and I hope that you too, will join me.