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Sep. 8, 2011
While it is not customary for the editorial staff of The Republican newspaper to cover national or international news, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, while some distance away, did indeed impact the lives of every resident, and did warrant attention and coverage in our news columns. Our focus at this newspaper has always been on our own, those of our mountaintop home, who either reside here, have made their home here at one time, or have close ties to the area still. Therefore, we deemed it appropriate to ask some of our own who were eyewitnesses to these terrifying events to tell their stories of that day, and to also express how the day changed them, or how they feel the events changed the world. We were pleased to receive several essays, all of which are published below….
…Matthew Sincell
Mtn. Lake Park native, current resident of Park City, Utah
Ten years ago I stood in Hamilton Park looking at the New York City skyline, camera in hand, and watched the two towers smoke. I had moved to Weehawken, N.J., on Sept. 9, 2001. I remember feeling as if I were caught somewhere between sleeping and waking, as if I and the gathering crowd of people around me were moving in perpetual slow motion. I didn’t know quite what was happening, but I knew deep inside that the world as I knew it was stirring. I was witnessing some great change. I found myself snapping a series of photos as each of the two towers fell. Somehow focusing on this tiny action of click, advance, click, advance, allowed me to document this moment with a certain detachment; as if looking through the camera lens made it less real. I understood intellectually that thousands of people were dying before my eyes, but emotionally it was impossible for me to comprehend. I think even 10 years later, it’s impossible for me to fully comprehend. I stayed in the city for nine more years, and watched, and was a small part, I suppose, of its resilience.
I witnessed things during those nine years that have made a permanent mark on me, on my own life-fabric. In a place where hate might have been the strongest, and perhaps most justified, reaction, I found instead that there was an outpouring of compassion. First, the compassion was extended toward the families of the victims. In my own profession at the time, theatre (which immediately after the event seemed about the most useless of professions), I saw fellow actors, writers, directors, and producers begin to write and perform plays to raise awareness and money for the families of the victims. There was a forum for the stories to be written down, remembered, and examined. A couple of years later, after the initial reaction to “protect our own and lash out at Muslims” subsided, I saw plays being written that attempted to get to the heart of why and how this all happened. This was done gingerly at first, because the wound was still so fresh. In some cases it was a matter of “not yet. It’s still too soon.” Gradually pain shifted into compassion and then into understanding, and then into a continued attempt to separate terrorists from a religion, which at its core is a religion of peace. I saw the sun continue to rise every morning. I saw people go back to work. I saw people walking forward, with scars, but walking forward.
Ten years later on Sept. 11, and every year since, my heart aches in remembrance of what was lost, the sacrifices made by those in the towers, the rescuers, and those who continue to work at ground zero today. I think of my friend, Ray Stapleton, my housemate, who spent the better part of four days in hell, with no sleep, climbing into the rubble of the towers hoping to find some small sign of life.
I also think about what was gained. I think about the strength of the human spirit. I think of my family. I think of how impermanent, how precious, and how beautiful life is. When I want to tell someone I love them, I tell them now. Now is the moment to live life. Now is truly what we have. These are the things I think about 10 years later.
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