Saying Goodbye... 9/11 Twenty Years Later

 "It has been said, 'time heals all wounds." I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting it's sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens. But it's never gone."

~Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

I have considered ending my 9/11 tributes over the years. Not because I have forgotten about what happened that day, and who it happened to, but because after 20 years perhaps it's time to not take back the grief yearly, like it sits on a shelf, waiting to be recognized. That's not how grief works. So, how does one celebrate a life? David and Lynn Angell were wonderful people. As was Marisa DiNardo Schorpp, who fell to her death, from the World Trade Center, on that horrible day. I feel like I got to know them, through my research. I only came to know about Marisa in recent years, but she left an impression me, on 9/11, that stayed with me to this day. She was in a window, along with others, begging for help as fire burned behind her. She was wearing a beautiful black skirt and white blouse. Classic. I felt so bad for years, that there was no way to say goodbye to know of her life, or to say goodbye to her, then one day while watching a documentary about 9/11, a man described seeing her fall to her death. She was identified years later, after her purse was discovered among the personal effects of the victims.

 

 Her name was Marisa, and she had lovely taste.

 

Anyway, this is my last 9/11 tribute post. It's been twenty years, and honestly, the new world I thought would be carved from grief and new understanding of our kinship as Americans never came to pass. We have all but forgotten what happened all those years ago, and we, Americans, don't stand up for each other, instead we push nationalist agendas out of cowardice and selfish need to put ourselves first, as if what happens to our neighbor doesn't happen to us. Americans unite in times of trouble? That's as silly a notion at this point as reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Sigh. I really thought we would be in a different place by this time, but sadly, we aren't, and it will be at least another generation before we can hope to see the idea of an America that lives up to that ideal. At my age, I am unsure if I will ever see the idea of brotherhood in America, let alone the ideal itself. Its sad. I was hoping that from the ashes, an American Phoenix would arise. Sadly, we can keep honoring the victims, but if it's just to show the world how much we remember, we are stepping on the very lives we can never properly repay, or truly honor. Next year, I will reflect on these three extraordinary people, but in my own way, and to myself.

Rest In Peace... David, Lynn And Marisa