“Often it’s the deepest pain which empowers you to grow into your highest self.”
~ Karen Salmansohn
September 11, 2001 was indeed a day very much like this one. The sky was so blue it almost hurt to look at. The humidity was low, the air crisp, and dew-dropped grass danced me into the office like Fred Astair lead Ginger Rogers. After we watched on TV as people choose death by falling over burning alive; after the towers fell, the Pentagon burned, and a field in Pennsylvania bore a plane-sized crater; after all doubt was erased that the United States had been attacked, I walked outside and knew instinctively that nothing would be the same. Oh, it looked the same, but already it didn’t sound the same. There was no air traffic. There was very little auto traffic. The few people still on campus walked in stoic silence. Even the birds sat quietly. I have never felt that kind of silence in my life, and probably never will again. It was much more than an auditory perception. The atmosphere itself was charged; electric. I could feel it, literally, in ever bone of my body. Today, as I watched students hurry to class, I realized that many of them were still in single digits 11 years ago. They may never remember what life in America was like before 9-11. I do. There are no words for just how grateful I am for that.
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