Obviously yesterday was the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I didn’t pay much attention to the media reports surrounding commemorative events. Not because I don’t care but because I thankfully don’t have TV anyway (yeah! no commercials!), and because I remembered in other ways.
Most people, me included, will never forget the events of that day. I remember driving to work at what was then Endeavor Information Systems (now, Ex Libris) in Des Plaines, Illinois, listening to the radio in the car and hearing about the first plane hitting one of the towers of the World Trade Center. And then, the next plane hitting another tower of the WTC. I remember calling home on my cell phone to update Michele about it, and also calling my mother to update her. When I walked into the office, everyone was glued to a large screen TV in the break room, and we soon were told to go home due to our proximity to O’Hare, literally a stone’s throw away from the office. At home we were glued to TV throughout the day.
The thing I remember the most about the whole situation was how deeply unsettled it made me feel. So unsettled, in fact, that the events of 9/11 were a driving force in making me think of moving out of the Chicago area to an area that I thought would be safer for my family. Within a few months, I had applied for and been offerred a job at Taylor University in Upland, IN, and we moved there in January 2002. Toward the end of that same month, my father died unexpectedly after a botched surgery. We stayed in Indiana ’til July of 2005 when, due to Michele’s health, we made a decision to move back to the Chicago area to be nearer to my in-laws.
Yesterday afternoon I was finally able to transfer a lot of video footage taken around the same time as 9/11 to my computer at home. A lot of the footage was of Keegan, who was nine at the time, and Tristan, who was less than a year old. Keegan was very much a giggly, goofy elementary school student, whereas Tristan was just learning to crawl, and then to walk. I hadn’t viewed most of this footage at all in the intervening years so it was an interesting retrospective that framed my memories of 9/11. I remember thinking seriously for the first time back then, what is this world coming to? What might happen next? How can I protect my family? Michele and I were still newlyweds, in a way. So much has changed over the years.
It was so meaningful to see footage of the kids and of the early days in Indiana, but that was counterbalanced by the realization that after that point in time, my videos were few and far between. As a result, I don’t have much video footage of Brinley and Cohen when they were little. That’s pretty sad.
