9/11
So it's 9/11 again, 2008. This means it's been two weeks short of seven years since Anne died. Seven years.
No. Writing it in italics doesn't help.
I got a really accurate glimpse of her face the other day that's not in any photograph or any usual memory. Anne animated is still burned onto my retinas somehow and the footage constantly changes. She's still vivid to me.
I watched a 9/11 documentary last night and it took me a few moments of time and date ascertainment to realise it was late-evening 9/10, to understand why I was seeing the second documentary on 9/11 in recent days.
This footage I hadn't seen before. There was no narration, very little text. It was raw, and it was impossible in parts. I can't elucidate all of it but there was one part that rattled in particular - well, two parts.
There's the disembodied voice of a man who watches the burning from his building across the way, and he notices the flag-waving man on the corner of one of the towers. You can hear his heart break as he speaks. And suddenly there's shock and horror and his very soul is in his throat as he reports to his friend that the flag-waving man just "fell".
The other part was this one guy sounding almost ebullient - incongruously joyful - as he watches the towers burn. "15 more minutes and I would have been in that building! I was running late this morning because I watched Monday Night Football! Monday Night Football saved my life!" and he keeps telling anyone who'll listen. I had long wondered about the WTC workers who were late that day and the ones who were chucking sickies. I had always wondered how they felt. Where is this guy today and what's his life like now that he's had time to absorb his particular reality?
Good grief. My Hang Ten icon, the default icon today, is suddenly macabre. I think I'll change that one.
EDITED TO ADD (14/09/08):
I should probably clarify that Anne died in Sydney, not in New York. Her death was only indirectly attributable to 9/11. If 9/11 hadn't happened she might still be alive, but she also might not be. We'll never know now, and it's moot because she did die. It doesn't seem to matter now that she was going to see a doctor, that she suspected something might be wrong... but it does matter.
No. Writing it in italics doesn't help.
I got a really accurate glimpse of her face the other day that's not in any photograph or any usual memory. Anne animated is still burned onto my retinas somehow and the footage constantly changes. She's still vivid to me.
I watched a 9/11 documentary last night and it took me a few moments of time and date ascertainment to realise it was late-evening 9/10, to understand why I was seeing the second documentary on 9/11 in recent days.
This footage I hadn't seen before. There was no narration, very little text. It was raw, and it was impossible in parts. I can't elucidate all of it but there was one part that rattled in particular - well, two parts.
There's the disembodied voice of a man who watches the burning from his building across the way, and he notices the flag-waving man on the corner of one of the towers. You can hear his heart break as he speaks. And suddenly there's shock and horror and his very soul is in his throat as he reports to his friend that the flag-waving man just "fell".
The other part was this one guy sounding almost ebullient - incongruously joyful - as he watches the towers burn. "15 more minutes and I would have been in that building! I was running late this morning because I watched Monday Night Football! Monday Night Football saved my life!" and he keeps telling anyone who'll listen. I had long wondered about the WTC workers who were late that day and the ones who were chucking sickies. I had always wondered how they felt. Where is this guy today and what's his life like now that he's had time to absorb his particular reality?
Good grief. My Hang Ten icon, the default icon today, is suddenly macabre. I think I'll change that one.
EDITED TO ADD (14/09/08):
I should probably clarify that Anne died in Sydney, not in New York. Her death was only indirectly attributable to 9/11. If 9/11 hadn't happened she might still be alive, but she also might not be. We'll never know now, and it's moot because she did die. It doesn't seem to matter now that she was going to see a doctor, that she suspected something might be wrong... but it does matter.