9/11 - Exactly what is it that we'll never forget?

First I want to thank you all for the tremendous, overwhelming response to my last post. I had a great, great weekend, which I'll go into more detail about during the week, and I'm tired but it would probably be irresponsible of me not to address the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11.

I didn't watch a single second of the coverage on television; the images are ingrained in our memories as if etched in stone. I didn't need to see that again. There will be no pictures of any of that in my posts. This will not be about politics, or terrorism, or anger, or revenge. This will not be about conspiracies or what I believe to be the truth behind that day. Instead I'll talk about that day, that week, as I experienced it and the message that I always try to take from it.

I was born and raised in New York City, and with the exception of the three years I spent in Vegas and a year at Oklahoma State, I've lived here my whole life; thirty years I've lived here. But I wasn't in New York that day, my sister, her husband and I were in Orlando Florida.

We got an early call from one of my sisters to turn on the T.V. and watched it all unfold live. There's no need to tell you the rest of that, you know it well enough.

New York can be a hard place. It's a hard life. But you never realize how much you love a place, or the people, how much they're a part of you. Two grown men wandering around Orlando with tears in their eyes so thick that there was just no wiping them away brought all of those raw emotions to the forefront for everyone to see.

It wasn't long before cell phone service was done, and we were left in the dark. My oldest sister, a detective with the NYPD, was stationed down the block at the time, we feared she may be in there. My father ran a place off of Broadway just a block away. I had only left a job at the Patrolman's Benevolent Association just a few months earlier and still had many, many friends (many of you reading right now) who would have been getting off of the trains which ran beneath the trade center right at the time the planes hit.

What was happening, and to whom, we just didn't know. And there was no way to find out. That was the worst part of it for us down there, that we just didn't know. It would be days before we found anything out. The three of us took turns randomly breaking into tears, bawling like babies.

As it happened we were scheduled to go to Seaworld's Discovery Cove, a place that only allows limited crowds per day. You have to make an appointment. Most everyone we encountered had been sympathetic, and it's in times like this, when something bigger than all of us snaps us out of our usual self occupied focus that we really get to see how good most folks really are, how much we empathize, how much we care for one another. Or course, invariably, there always has to be some jackass too stupid to get it, acting like fools because they don't fear repercussions because no one holds them to task.

Two clowns at the park screamed "In Coming!", laughing about it as we waited to swim with dolphins. Stepping out to where they could see us, red lines staining out cheeks, and a low but firm "we're from NY you asshole" wiped the smile and jokes from their faces quickly. It's amazing how quickly it usually does with that sort of clown, isn't it?

But there's real magic in the world around us every time we walk outside our door, especially in the natural things, all one has to do to see it is know where to look. Discovery Cove is set up so that you experience some of that natural magic. We swam with sharks that day; we swam with dolphins.

That was an experience like no other with an absolutely amazing creature. Dolphins are graceful, yet powerful, intelligent and loving. No words of mine are sufficient to describe the feeling of exhilaration as one of these majestic animals pulls you through the water. And it's insane how you can just feel how happy they are that you're there with them.

There's a picture we have from that day that I don't need to see, I can picture it as I write this, of my sister riding that dolphin, and the pure joy on her face. Her and I have been through so much together over the years; that look on her face is one of my best memories. By the time we got back to the time share our emotions had worn us down; we were in no shape to go anywhere, do anything. But watching more of the horrible footage just wouldn't do, so we rented a movie.

There's not much in the world that I love more than a good story, and my love of movies stems from the need to escape life's pains; for two hours you're transported into another world, for two hours all of your problems disappear. We rented The Legend of Bagger Vance that night, a film about God and fate and finding our own path in life, our natural swing. It stars Matt Damon, Will Smith and Charlize Theron, directed by Robert Redford. The flik went down as one of the biggest flops in all of their careers, but there were parts that just made us laugh. My brother in law and I still scream "BALLS!" because of it all these years later, and it's one of my favorite movies to this day.

9/11 forced the closing of Disney World, the happiest place on earth, so we went to Seaworld instead. Devil and I sat as close as possible to Shamu the whale and came out out of the show completely drenched. Being owned by Anheuser Busch, Seaworld had 'beer school', which we had to attend. Each person gets 1 free sample; drunks as we are, we each had 6. I have a picture hanging on my wall; it's my brother in law and I thoroughly soaked, smiling from ear to ear.

The next day we went to Epcot Center and grabbed a beer at every bar in every country in the place. That adds up to a lot of beer; we were loaded. I had to fulfil one of my great pleasures of the time, taking picture with people I don't know. On the monorail on the way back a three year old girl pointed up at my brother in law and scolded him, clear as day, "You're a bad piece!" I can't tell you how hard that made me us laugh.

We had to drive back home from Florida, going through a tropical storm that literally blinded us on the way. My sister has brass balls even attempting that and a few days later we were making our approach to the city, Even a week later you could see the smoke hanging in the air for miles. There was a sickening hole in the skyline.

I happened to be one of the lucky ones from that day, none of my people had been lost. Many people who are very dear to me couldn't say the same, having lost people very dear to them. Often I feel guilty that I wasn't here, not that I could have done anything, just to have been there with, and for, my people, my city. I probably always will, but it is what it is.

Since then, 9/11 has often been used for cheap propaganda and to push political agenda. It's been used as an excuse to lash out in anger, to pigeon hole us into the "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality. And for every "never forget" plastered all over facebook, I fear in twenty years it'll just be another excuse for a barbecue, and to utter lines of crap just for attention, but making it seem like we care. I know in twenty years facts will come out that make the whole thing very different in our minds.

But when I think of that time I want no part of images of desperate people hurling themselves 100 stories to their death. I prefer to think about natures amazing creatures, one of the happiest smiles I've ever seen on my sisters face, Bagger Vance and trying to find my natural swing, the beautiful innocence and perfect intuition of little children and the worlds only confirmed bad piece. I prefer to think about how the great little details in life can take away the greatest pains, even if just for a while.

Of course, it's so much easier for me; I didn't lose anyone; I didn't have to walk home that day, terrified, through dust and debris, through living hell. But I prefer to think of my people, my nation, coming together and showing our pride in who we are, in each other, our once great country and the hope that we can be great again. Americans used to live for America, for that ideal of something bigger, better than all of us; we rarely do that anymore. And I prefer to remember seeing how much we really care about each other, and how we collectively pick each other up when we're so down.

But I cry too. Why does it have to take the worst of the world to show us the best of it, the best of us? If we could see that, be that, everyday, travesties like 9/11 would never occur.

Later people.