Reflection and Renewal

Today was a day of reflection, spent at the site of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. As we approached the site - which is still surrounded by temporary walls covered with barbed wire - we were first struck by how bustling the Lower Manhattan neighborhood was on a sunny Friday. We had visited the site as a family several weeks after the 9/11 attacks, and Lower Manhattan was a ghost town, deserted and covered in a fine powder. Now, the streets teemed again with life.

The pools commemorating the hallowed ground where the towers once stood are somber and sad, and the water in each pool flows into what appears to be an infinite abyss below the ground.  The feeling of tears in the water, and the flow of the water into a great gash in the earth are very sobering.

Above the waterfalls and reflecting pools, the new towers are rising from the ground, creating a feeling of hope and renewal.  The feelings of renewal are palpable, but so are the feelings of sadness which surround the site.  One place contains both the fear and sadness of our recent history, and the possibility of what is to come.

I took a photograph of a lovely young child sitting on the edge of the reflecting pool with the Freedom Tower rising behind her.  If her father emails permission, I will post it soon.  In that picture, I feel a message from the reflective World Trade Center site to those who will create America's future.

In anything we build, we must honor our history and those who sacrificed to make it possible, but we also must look forward to a time when joy is unbridled by sadness, when the innocence of youth and invention and creativity are not burdened by history, but standing proudly on the shoulders of those who came before. 

- Tod and Rachel, September 21, 2012