Thought for 9/11

Hard to believe it has been 8 years since that day. Many of the folks in the financial industry and especially those of us from the New York area have stories of friends lost, lives changed forever. Joe Donohue, upsidetrader to those of you who may follow him on twitter or Stocktwits recounts his recollection in this chilling piece from his blog.
I had an early meeting that morning with an elderly client and as I arrived she was sitting in front of the TV watching the news, on the way over I had heard the initial reports that a small plane had hit the north Tower. I remember thinking, ok, a plane hit the Empire State Building many years ago and it survived. As we saw the reports and it was evident it was no small plane, I still felt it was a tragedy, but that it was some sort of pilot error or the like, it hadn’t really dawned on me yet how many of my colleagues and friends might be in the building or near the impact . I thought it would be tough to fight a fire that high up in the building and I admit feeling irritated that traffic in the downtown area would be sucky for days at least. New Yorkers are like that, if you watch the original version of King Kong you’ll see New York cabbies honking their horns at other cars whose drivers had the nerve to look up at the giant gorilla climbing the building and slow down traffic. Then things got very different as we sat together numbly and the 2nd plane hit the south tower, no way this could be an accident. The world became a different place at that moment, and the events of that day will echo down the years forever, as they should.
It hurts very deeply to remember my friends who lost their lives in the Building, the 10 funerals in 2 weeks, the grieving families. I remember the smell of the air, the paper still floating to the ground on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway days later, the smoke still rising above the site. I feel anger at the perpetrators of this malice, and that we haven’t made them pay with their lives. But I realize that this is unhealthy for me, and I won’t let it cause me any more pain. This is a day of remembrance but I will choose not to remember how my friends died but how they lived, Joey getting in trouble in 3rd grade for drawing a crude figure of a nude girl, Anthony’s bachelor party. If I think of these things I smile, if I think of that day I cry, and I know both of those guys would smack me if they saw that. I urge everyone to celebrate the lives of their loved ones on this day. As the bell rings in somber tribute, I’ll think of the good times because that’s what I want to remember not the death and destruction the bad guys want me to remember. I will however not forget who brought about this calamity nor will I allow the people in power to forget.