09/12/2021
Yesterday we all remembered all that happened and all that was lost on 9/11/01. We never will & never should forget that day.
Whenever I think of that day & its far-reaching aftermath, I remember another time, 6 months later.
I was in NYC for a trial in early March of 2002 that was held at a NYS courthouse mere blocks from where the Twin Towers had stood every other time I had been to The City. I stayed at the Millenium Hilton Downtown, in a room that looked directly down onto Ground Zero. It was my gut-wrenching first sight of The Site, and it filled me with many powerful and mixed emotions - astonishment, sorrow, sadness, and anger. It was hard to tear my attention away from that terrible iconic view & all the thoughts & emotions that went with it.
But as trials do for the lawyers that try them, my work that brought me there, over the course of a week, drew my attention away from the distracting destruction that lay outside my hotel window like a massive wound in the heart and psyche of New York & America.
Then, on the evening of March 11, 2002, I was walking back to the hotel from dinner, lost in my thoughts & preparations for what I believed was the most important thing happening in my small world just then - closing arguments the next morning.
It was then that I experienced one of the most incredible & surreal moments of my life.
As I walked, I suddenly realized that I was the only person moving anywhere as far as I could see on the crowded streets of lower Manhattan that surrounded me. It was a phenomenon I had never experienced before or since on many trips to The City over the years. As I looked around, I realized that everyone else was stopped & looking up. When I did likewise, I saw immediately & with breath-taking awe what had transfixed the people all around me, and no doubt the entirety of NYC and beyond.
It was - on the 6 month anniversary of 9/11 - the first time The Twin Towers of Light were displayed. I, like everyone else around me, realized there was nothing more important in the world right then than what we were all witnessing & experiencing together at that moment. We, as a country & a people, had taken a massive hit & we were still hurting horribly, but We were also back on our collective feet. And it seemed - then, at least & for a long time - that We were moving forward, not leaving 9/11 and Ground Zero behind, but in a very palpable & real sense, bringing it all with us as a source of rallying strength & determination. I was never so humbled & proud at the same time to be both an American, and a New Yorker, regardless of what part of the State I came from.
My closing arguments the next morning would go on & they would deliver a good result for my client. I was then, and still am, thankful for that. But I am most thankful & humbled today that this relatively routine event in my work life as a trial attorney brought me to the streets of Manhattan exactly when & where it did, so that I could share an extraordinarily profound moment with thousands of strangers who all in that moment seemed like friends & allies as we witnessed something truly magnificent, inspiring, cathartic and unforgettable.
โThe Twin Towers of Lightโ could not have been more aptly named or more timely turned on - then & now.
This is the America that I - and We - know, remember, and perhaps will meet and move forward with again.
(Shared with Shawn Carey )
