More Than Any of Us Can Bear.

The block is immediately haunting.  Minutes earlier you were navigating your way through the twisting streets of lower Manhattan, for down here there is no grid system to follow, and as you are walking you find yourself thinking about the fact that One World Trade Center is almost open, almost ready for occupancy.  Had you stayed in New York all those years ago, with the company you worked for while in the city, you would be one of the tenants about to move into the building, about to swap your Times Square offices for brand new ones in America's tallest building.  You're thinking all of this and watching street signs and traffic and people and thinking about the past thirteen years and then suddenly, you turn right at the corner of a block and there you are.

Hallowed Ground.

It is an overcast early October day, the threat of a shower or two lingers in the clouds above.  Despite the throngs of tourists, the atmosphere is somber, quiet.  Aside from the one or two grade school children you overhear asking their parents questions, people are quiet, thoughtful, reflective.  You step up to one of the two reflecting pools.  You run your fingers along the names engraved along the edges, thinking for a moment about the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and recall being a child yourself, watching people take rubbings of names, of witnessing strangers run their own fingers over name after name carved into rock.  That was one memorial. And now, here you are at another one, in another city, from what will likely remain the greatest national tragedy of your lifetime.

You have come alone.

When you have held your breath and said a prayer for those names closest to you, when your heart already feels too heavy after only a minute or two of looking at those names, all of those names, you allow your graze to move outward, beyond the engravings and toward the waterfalls.  From previous research you know that each of the pools sit in the footprint of where those mighty World Trade Towers once stood, that each of them measures approximately an acre in size.  Amazed, in awe, and humbled you listen to the water pour down through each square shape for a few moments.  Thinking, reflecting.  All any of those people did that morning was go to work.  Just an average, ordinary, brilliantly blue-skied Tuesday in September.

Thinking that sneaking off for a few hours in between appointments on a late Friday morning might mean there would be less people, fewer crowds, you're rather amazed at the endless lines of people queuing up in various appropriate lanes.  There are school groups, elderly couples.  Foreigners, young families, bus tours.

You have had a rough week during this trip to Manhattan.  Some meetings haven't gone quite as expected, a few things have not unfolded as you expected them to.  You are tired, emotionally exhausted, and can feel you are already not quite yourself this morning.  Still.  What minor complaints.  There were nearly 3,000 people who died more than thirteen years ago that you are willing to bet would give almost anything to be in your shoes, to have the luxury of worrying whether or not your potential client was as impressed with your discussion as you had hoped they would be going into the conversation.

So you buy a ticket.

You owe them that.

It has been thirteen years and the wounds, while you cannot imagine that they will ever completely disappear within your lifetime do not feel quite as raw, as fresh.  You are always one to pray each morning on the anniversary, now and again you find yourself thinking of various victims that you came to "know" in the days that followed the attacks, even when another anniversary hasn't rolled around again.  

You have done your homework.  You know you will be going underground, you understand that there are various sections that may be harder than others to view, to witness.  You have read that there are warnings posted for certain sections, you know that there is always the option to "opt out" of various rooms or exhibits, should the need arise. Still, you are rattled when you step through the entrance, have your ticket scanned, and are immediately confronted with airport-like security.  There are bins for purses and backpacks, metal detectors to walk through.  Of course you know why this is necessary.  Of course you comply with the regulations.  But your nerves are immediately frazzled; your mind cannot help but go to the failed security efforts at various airports that fateful morning, your brain flashes back to the grainy black and white images that were later released of the hijackers walking calmly through security themselves.  You set off the metal detector when you step through the first time.  You are sure it's because of the watch and bracelets you are wearing on your right hand, but a gruff security guard rushes immediately in front of you.  "Miss.  Stop." he exclaims.  You take a step backward, reflexively.  "Miss.  Stop.  Listen to me."  You nod, suddenly frightened, amazed that at 35, you can still be made to feel instantly like a teenager.  "Step back again." he says, sternly.  "Put your arms above you in an X, like this."  You nod, do as he says.  "Now come through.  Slowly."  he commands.  You do as you are told, there is no beeping, no alarm this time.  Your bag is there waiting for you, you pick it up in a hurry, sure that if you can just get away from the congregation that has bottle-necked due to security, you will feel okay, less shaken.

There is no natural light.

The museum moves you slowly underground level by gradual level.  It is, you can tell from the moment you step toward the actual exhibits, an extraordinarily well done museum.  While you weave through levels, you're unaware how much further underground you are moving, aside from an initial escalator and a handful of steps, you are never fully aware of the deep decent you make.

One of the very first things you notice are the two large structural columns, remnants you know, from the original Twin Towers.  You eye the metal, note the height, the thick steel.  How massive these pieces are, even now.  Countless, the number of times you marveled at the size of those two Twin Tower buildings as a kid on trips into the city, racing with your mother and brother, vying to be the first to spot both the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty from the car while riding along the New Jersey Turnpike.

As you continue to descend you pause, looking to your right.  There, next to the common stairs you, yourself are currently standing on, are the "survivor's stairs."  You read the plaque nearby, understand that these are the Vesey Street stair remnants, the very stairs that so many fled down that terrible morning.  The stairs are worn thin, crumbling in parts.  As you read you learn that the stairs themselves were originally granite covered and stood next to two escalators that worked every morning and every evening to take thousands and thousands of commuters up from Vesey Street to the World Trade Center Plaza.

You close your eyes after reading the plaque, unable to keep from thinking about the hundreds of images from that day, of anyone fortunate enough to be a survivor, fleeing from those buildings as fast as they were able.  When you open your eyes you notice a man in uniform, the New York City Police Department, standing a few steps below you, staring at these same Vesey Street steps.  His eyes are wet with tears, his hands gripping the handrail.  You watch as a young man about your own age, one you spotted earlier leading a group of high school students into the museum, steps toward the officer.  They exchange no words, no handshakes.  The teacher simply gives the officer's shoulder a squeeze for a moment and the officer nods in acknowledgement.

Your heart seizes in your chest as you watch the two of them interact.

Humanity, in its purest form.

The In Memoriam room is heartbreaking, just as you expected it would be.  The pictures.  The faces.  The stories.  The thousands upon thousands of simple people, as ordinary and as innocent as anyone, all of them gone, vanished, in less than two hours.  

Your hands are shaking as you move from In Memoriam wall to wall, your chest feels tight.  And yet you keep looking, keep reading, keep staring at the faces because you have to.  Because you can.  Because you are still here.  Because they are not.

As you walk back out into the main hall, you can feel the tightening in your chest getting worse.  You're having a hard time breathing a full breath.  Feeling overwhelmed you decide you will not linger in this museum as long as you had initially intended, you allow yourself the opportunity to bypass a short film that visitors are queuing up to view, you walk rather quickly past the memorial quilts.  You pause by the twisted and mangled fire truck, you read the signage and recall with equal parts terror and clarity how entire fire stations and police units were wiped out, all of them gone, together, in an instant.

You come upon an interior room titled, simply, September 11, 2001.  There is a small line to get in, people are slowly entering the revolving doors to the exhibit one by one.  Once inside, the rooms feel even darker than they did a moment ago.  In front of you is a projected image of the two twin towers on that sunny, crisp, early September morning.  The images, they flicker once, twice, and on the third flash, the first plane has struck.  In your mind you can instantly see yourself, thirteen years and a handful of days ago, pulling out of your father's driveway in New Jersey, on your way to work, idling your Jeep while your Dad pulls the empty trash bins back from the curb.  "Dad," you say.  "The radio is reporting that a plane just hit one of the World Trade Towers."  You and your father look at each other for a moment, perplexed.  You both shrug your shoulders, shake your heads.  You drive off after another second, waving as you turn out onto his street.

That was the end.

The end of a certain existence we will never truly know again.

As you step further into the room, you see The Today Show footage from that morning. Matt Lauer interrupts his guest, an author promoting his new book, announcing that they have breaking news about an airplane that appears to have hit one of the Twin Towers.

And you're back there.  In an instant, that day, that horrible, shocking, tragic, unbelievable day is coursing through every vein in your body.  You walk past the televisions, the boards explaining what the recent headlines had been on September 10, 2001.  You hear a voice recording.  It is a husband, calling home to his wife, telling her if she hasn't seen the news yet, that a plane just appears to have hit the North Tower.  She is not to worry, he tells her, calmly, as things seem secure in the South Tower and he's okay.  In a minute there is a beep, another recording.  It is the same man again, this time, with another message, telling his wife that he is, instead, actually going to evacuate.  There is another beep signifying the end of the message. 

And then there is no more.

You start to sweat, to panic a little bit.  This is getting to be too much, you realize, and you begin to pick up your pace moving through the exhibit.  You hear the voices of flight attendants, their messages to air control towers when they realize they have been hijacked.  You read on the walls quotes, comments, from loved ones - both those who died during the attacks and those on the receiving end of those calls, those voice messages, those last updates.

You walk faster.  You think of your Mom.  You wish she was here, right at that very moment.  She would understand without a word.  She would know.  You have never actually had a panic attack, you realize, but understand you are very close to, if not already having one, now.  It is so crowded.  There are so many people.  It is so dark.  This is the day you have already lived, lived enough for a thousand lifetimes, and there are reminders of it everywhere.  You thought you would be okay.  You thought you would feel far enough removed.  But you are, in a breath, back there.  To that Tuesday morning.  Worse, even perhaps now, as you know the outcome, the sheer magnitude of horror, death, unspeakable tragedy.  You walk past an area that covers the people who were forced to jump from the towers, you read quotes on the wall about the people on the ground that bore witness to these souls forced to leap to their own deaths.  You owe it to them to keep reading, to continue to bear witness, you know, but you cannot.  You cannot keep looking and watching and listening because all you can think now is that you have to get out, get out, get out and you want to run but there are too many people around and you are trying to move past the little children holding their parent's hands and the group of elderly women walking together and you can't seem to find an exit, where is the door, is there any door anywhere, and you think of the thousands of people who were looking for doors and stairwells on September 11, 2001 and you cannot recall a time when you have felt this frightened and panicked and you just need some fresh air, just anyone get you to some fresh air, please.

You can't stay.  You can't look at anymore, you cannot track the events leading up to 9/11 nor the events that unfolded in the years after up until the present day.  You just need light.  You need air. You need out.  You are sorry.  You are so, so sorry you say to yourself over and over again as you try and navigate which floor you are on and where you can find an exit that won't set off an alarm.  You pray to the victims as you move up toward the entrance.  You are so very, very sorry.  You thought you could do it, you tell them.  You thought you could make it.  You are so sorry.

And then, there is an exit.  A guard standing by.  He nods once as you walk - almost run - past him, tears in your eyes.  I am sorry, you say.  I couldn't stay, you tell him.  He nods again.  He knows.   

We are all so sorry.