Digital Life

And as it always is on this day, seared into memory are those eternal images. The bright blue sky, clear and oddly serene but for the thick black smoke as the twin towers of man burn and groan and sway and eventually, with grace unbecoming of tragedy, fall to the earth as the world watches in horrified silence. For what can you say when you look into the abyss? And there is only silence.

On this day, 11 years ago, I was a high school freshman. It was gym class, and I was assembled with my class on the bleachers. An unusual request. Then the teacher comes in with a stack of fliers and haunted eyes to give us the news. I was young, but not young enough, for I yet remembered other dark days. Oklahoma City is strongest in my mind. I still remember the death toll--168 men, women and children. But having limited world experience, I didn't yet understand the magnitude, for not all events had yet transpired on this day. Sometimes I still wish I didn't.

I remember quiet hallways and subdued whispers. I remember my English teacher describing what he had seen, watching TV in the teacher's lounge, and how he choked up when he said he had to turn away after the second plane, because he couldn't bear to watch it anymore.

What strikes me most about that day, more than anything else, was the silence when I was on my way home from school. I live along a major air travel corridor, and so planes have always been a fact of life. Commercial jets high in the sky, their contrails visible for miles. Small planes, often passing at low altitude overhead. Even the occasional military plane, with their distinctive gray coloring and massive, heavy bodies. But there was nothing. Nothing but silence. It wasn't until much later that I learned for the first time in history, United States airspace was closed and all planes were grounded. And the sky was silent, and stark, and lonely.

I got home to an empty house, as was the case. I turned on the news and looked into that abyss, and for the first time saw the face of terror in the flash of metal, roiling fireball and smoke so thick and dark it could be seen from space.

But I was not alone, for I also turned on my computer. I had been a member here for perhaps three weeks, a little more. This was where I came and this was where I was no longer alone, as together we watched and discussed and expressed sorrow and anger and worry. Pete lives in the city and saw it happen. I remember the confusion as the other buildings in the tower complex collapsed, one by one. As members who lived around what was quickly named Ground Zero checked in and were welcomed back into the community. We were alone and yet together and for me, it was my first experience of what an online community is, and what it means to be part of one. I think that as much as anything is why I am still here today, all these years later, telling this story to say thank you, to my friends, both here and long departed. Because I was not alone that day, and neither were you.

Thank you, and may today be a peaceful one as together we remember and reflect and perhaps, find solace in a quiet moment as we look into that clear blue sky that is silent no longer.