Smashed -- James LaBrie
Forgive me for being a bit maudlin.
I decided only at the last moment to make a post about the awful events of 11 September 2001. To be sure, I listened to and read the lyrics of about 35 songs written after that terrible day, but not a single one captured the emotions that wracked my mind as the horror unfolded. I rejected song after song for being too jingoistic, too angry, too hopeful, too everything. I wanted a song to express the distress and anguish and hopelessness and confusion I felt that horrifying Tuesday. Eventually, I settled on James LaBrrie’s reflections on 9/11 as best matching my own feelings.
I was teaching some forgotten short story when my principal opened my door and asked me to step into the hall for a moment. She then told me an aircraft had just crashed into the World Trade Center. When my students left for computer instruction shortly thereafter, leaving me along in the room, I turned on my computer and watched live coverage of the unfolding tragedy.
While I knew it extremely unlikely, I hoped against hope that this all might be some freak accident. After all, such things had happened before. Most famously, in the closing weeks of World War II, an Army Air Corps B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building. That faint hope was mortally crushed when a second plane smashed into the second tower. It was as if I were punched in the gut. I felt as if a scorpion had plunged its poisonous tail into my soul, and the stinger could never be dislodged.
How much more horrifying must this be for those who lost loved ones and family? Perhaps my wife Lynn could answer. She lost a dear friend that day; he was a passenger aboard one of those doomed flights.
My good friend Vanessa, were she able to find the words through the pain that clouds her memories, could explain as well. She called me that night. In a panicky voice, she explained that three of her brothers had been working in lower Manhattan that morning and none returned to their Brooklyn homes that evening. Nor had they called their families. The following day, Vanessa gave me an update. Two of her brothers had been forced to remain in the city -- the bridge was impassible that day. Calling home was impossible as well as phone lines were devoted to emergency services. The third brother had died in the attacks. His remains were never recovered.
Even after all these years, I cannot help but be moved by my friend’s relief that only one of her brothers had been killed that day.
I was teaching some forgotten short story when my principal opened my door and asked me to step into the hall for a moment. She then told me an aircraft had just crashed into the World Trade Center. When my students left for computer instruction shortly thereafter, leaving me along in the room, I turned on my computer and watched live coverage of the unfolding tragedy.
While I knew it extremely unlikely, I hoped against hope that this all might be some freak accident. After all, such things had happened before. Most famously, in the closing weeks of World War II, an Army Air Corps B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building. That faint hope was mortally crushed when a second plane smashed into the second tower. It was as if I were punched in the gut. I felt as if a scorpion had plunged its poisonous tail into my soul, and the stinger could never be dislodged.
How much more horrifying must this be for those who lost loved ones and family? Perhaps my wife Lynn could answer. She lost a dear friend that day; he was a passenger aboard one of those doomed flights.
My good friend Vanessa, were she able to find the words through the pain that clouds her memories, could explain as well. She called me that night. In a panicky voice, she explained that three of her brothers had been working in lower Manhattan that morning and none returned to their Brooklyn homes that evening. Nor had they called their families. The following day, Vanessa gave me an update. Two of her brothers had been forced to remain in the city -- the bridge was impassible that day. Calling home was impossible as well as phone lines were devoted to emergency services. The third brother had died in the attacks. His remains were never recovered.
Even after all these years, I cannot help but be moved by my friend’s relief that only one of her brothers had been killed that day.
One year to the day after the attacks, Lynn and I attended a memorial service conducted on the sidewalk outside Chicago’s Loyola Law School. Volunteers took turns reading the names of the 2,996 men, women, and children whose lives were prematurely snuffed out in the towers and on the streets of New York City; at the west wing of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia; and on a grassy plain in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Tears flowed copiously as speakers recounted the ghastly rollcall. I did not have the emotional fortitude to attend future memorial ceremonies.
I lay awake
I'm feeling weak
Not sure I can go on
Please take me far
There's nothing I can give
All I had is gone
Buildings fell
Stealing people's dreams
A way of life
Guess we don't fit
Fit their plans
Familiar streets
Familiar sites
Places where friends meet
It's been a while
So much has changed since then
The future seems so bleak
Nothing stands
All's been lost
They silence our despair
Keep your cool
World is watching you
Act as though you care
Buildings fell
Stealing people's dreams
A way of life
Guess we don't fit
Fit their plan
Watched so many of my
Loved ones fall today
It's like I'm standing here
With all of my past erased
The man I have become
Is not walking away
It is the memories
That makes the man you see
Buildings fell
Stealing people's dreams
A way of life
Guess we don't fit
Fit the plan
Our buildings burn
Can't comprehend
The loss surrounding me
And does it end
When no one's left to bleed
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