WHY I DON’T CELEBRATE 9-11

I’ve had this ongoing argument with myself and others throughout the years, make that twenty-five years to be exact about celebrating 9-11. I never wanted to celebrate 9-11. By celebrate, I mean treat it like a special day, a day of remembrance.

I’m or I was a city worker who worked four blocks away and two blocks over from the World Trade Center’s twin towers. I went to work on that clear sunny morning. I arrived at my office a little before 8 in the morning. It was the date for the Democratic runoff for mayor, Mark Greene VS Freddie Ferrer. Who knew the beautiful day would turn ugly so fast? A friend called me. We talked as we usually did until she told me to find a television and turn it on or listen 1010 WINS. The urgency in her voice made me do it.

It was the second worst decision among many that I made that day. The first one was watching the twins collapse, one after the other, a sight I haven’t been able to forget in 25 years. They looked like dominos except they fell downward and not over. It was almost as if some giant hand was sawing away the legs underneath them while another hand applied pressure from the top to push them further and further downward until there was nothing left but rubble. The third bad decision I made was not leaving the area for the five hours as I helped settle people down. I offered rides uptown to anyone willing to go with me and away from the nightmare.

After that horrible, horrible tragedy, I couldn’t sleep through the night. For a long time, all I saw when I closed my eyes was the twins collapsing over and over again. It didn’t help my sleep habits that the exact same scenes of my nightmares were re-played constantly on television and the internet. I didn’t have the benefit of a job for distraction either. Civil authorities were still trying to figure out what happened. The area was restricted to on a need-to-know basis, unless you were part of Ground Zero cleanup personnel.

I’ve always made it a point to ask for time off on 9-11. I just want to be alone with my thoughts.

It’s 25 years later, I still change channels as soon as 9-11 information comes on. I don’t want to see it. It brings back too many painful memories. I have friends who were part of the 9-11 cleanup who are gone. They died of breast cancer and other cancers that I believe were caused by those gray dust particles covering everything that day… people, cars, the sidewalks the roadway, buildings, ambulances bridges, I know because I walked in the ash dust to reach my car.

9-11 is one of those historic days I’ll never forget but don’t really want to remember.

Thanks for reading this

BL Wilson

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