By Jeff Hampton
(Note: This was written sometime in the fall of 2002.)
I’ve been to Manhattan twice since September 11, 2001, and on both occasions I’ve stayed away from the World Trade Center site – “ground zero” as we all now call it. I haven’t tried to see it, and in fact I’ve had no desire to see it.
To be honest, I’ve not been a fan of this current trend to erect a memorial in response to every horror, atrocity and evil that has befallen us. I’ve had a “where is it all going to end?” attitude, fearing that in time the landscape is going to be covered with memorials – from little crosses on the side of the highway to massive urban monuments of stone and steel. I fear that rather than living bravely in the sunlight of better tomorrows, our monuments and memorials are casting long shadows of sad and heartbreaking yesterdays. So I’ve stayed away from Ground Zero, preferring instead the green, sunny ambiance of Central Park.
But a recent business trip to Oklahoma City has me reconsidering all of this – not because of what I saw, but because of what I felt. After a very nice meal in one of the city’s new Bricktown restaurants, my hosts thought it would be interesting to walk the few blocks over to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I honestly did not want to go, but I felt it would have been rude to part company and go somewhere else, and it would have been barbaric to openly raise a fuss about it. So I went.
The evening was cool and the sun was beginning to set as we approached the plaza. I had seen pictures and had read about it, but I somehow had missed the fact that the memorial is built into what was once the basement of the Murrah Federal Building. In fact, our walk took us up what had been the building plaza, still intact, and past the green but quiet remnants of the childcare center’s playground. And then we came to a wall where we could look down at the now-familiar reflecting pool, 168 chairs, entrance and exit gates framing the precise time of the attack. Up on the other side was the “Survivor Tree,” so named for its miraculous survival of the horrible blast.
As we stood and looked out across the plaza, and as we silently descended down into it, I was overwhelmed by the quiet of the place. There were dozens of people all around – perhaps hundreds – and if there was any talk, it was hushed and reverent. People’s movements were slow and deliberate, as if to not stir the air in this place. I marveled at how the long rectangular reflecting pool had been designed just inches deep – deep enough to hold water and create stunning reflections, and yet so shallow as to assure that the surface would never ripple or break.
And then the sun began to set, and the lights came on in the bases of the 168 bronze and plexiglass chairs, and I became aware that I was not just looking at the place where a tragic event occurred. Rather, I was standing on the site of a pivotal event in our collective history. What happened at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City, forever changed or at least updated our perspective on life in the United States. We were shaken awake by a new vulnerability from within. We now live with a new sense of caution, but also a new sense of daily purpose.
And that is what all the great memorials of the world do. They mark a change in the way we live and teach a lesson about the human spirit. And they all do so in their own special way.
In England, the remains of the Coventry Cathedral remind us of the terrible night of November 14, 1940, when the city was devastated by Hitler’s bombs. The new cathedral that is linked to the remains of the 14th century church remind us of how the people of that city refused to give in and give up, but instead rebuilt and live on today.
The Vietnam memorial in Washington, D.C. reminds us, with name after name after name, of the terrible loss that occurred day after day, week after week, year after year. We look at the individual names, and then all 58,000 in mass, and we say, “We won’t allow another Vietnam.”
The Kennedy Memorial in Dallas (and not Dealey Plaza nearby) reminds us that ideas and innocence can be lost in a heartbeat, but also that they live on in those that follow. Designed as an empty tomb, we look at the memorial and are reminded that the vision and energy of one man was not buried with him; it lives on in each of us.
Even the little crosses we see on the side of the highway have something to say to all of us: Be responsible, be safe, don’t be careless with your life and the lives of others. You have friends and family who love you and want to be with you for a long, long time.
These are all powerful messages, and important ones, especially in this age when people – especially our youth – don’t seem to read as much. They learn by viewing, watching and experiencing, and these memorials say more and teach more than any chapter in a book. You walk up to and into these sites and you can’t help but come away with lessons about life and death, loss and renewal, despair and hope.
Of course, I realize that these memorials have a deeper meaning for those who survived or who lost loved ones in these events. They are reminders of individual personalities that were silenced prematurely and will leave voids that cannot be filled . . . ever. As I walked around the memorial in Oklahoma City, I sensed that there were people there who had a personal link to the place.
That will certainly be the case in lower Manhattan, where the sad truth is that many people were never found, and thus there will be no opportunities for headstones in other places. For their families, the memorial that is born out of that hole will be their cemetery, their place of personal remembrance.
Until then – until there is something to experience and learn from – I won’t go to Ground Zero. For now, the place is as hollow as the hole in the ground.
Copyright © Jeff Hampton 2010