Five years later, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are not forgotten. Despite fears that we may become apathetic or forget the horrors of that day, I know that will never be. A year or so after the attacks, my mother and I talked about the inability to forget. She told me about how she remembers where she was the day President Kennedy was shot. And when Princess Diana died. I told her I still remember where I was when O.J. Simpson was found innocent. There’s no way I will forget 9/11. Ever.I went to New York City two weeks after the World Trade Center Towers fell. My mother heard the call by Mayor Giuliani to support the Big Apple’s economy and we went. Seeing the fallen towers didn’t make it any more real, it made it surreal. The wrenched metal. The military blockade. The hundreds and hundreds of memorials to those lost. The tears. Those of us not directly involved in the events—we have a different picture of what happened. We saw it as matter-of-factly as newscasters could bring themselves to make it. To see it in person—as close as the barriers and chain-link fence would let me—made it unbelievable. It was impossible, but it was there.We didn’t talk about the events much while we were in NYC, except to the cab driver from the train station to our hotel. We told him we were from New Mexico and we were there to offer moral support. He thanked us for caring. He was happy to know people from outside the city were thinking of them. The two things I’ll most remember from our brief visit are the infamous shards of the World Trade Center that still stood and that cab driver. He was a real person, not just a image on a screen.KNME Channel 5 is airing some 9/11 programming this week. On Tuesday, Sept. 12, at 8 p.m. and again on Friday, Sept. 15, at 9 p.m. the NOVA program will look into the events of 9/11 and the major investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center in "Building on Ground Zero." Also on Tuesday, Sept. 12, at 9 p.m. they’ll air "America Rebuilds: Part II—Return to Ground Zero," which follows the early stages of reconstruction at Ground Zero.
In Remembrance
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