Reflecting

My new office overlooks the World Trade Center.

I had not seen the memorial, but I do remember when the towers fell. Samuel was three years old, and Ethan was an infant. I was in midtown watching on TV with everyone else in my office. Jen and the boys were at school on West 95th.

The subways were shut down, and it was surreal walking home and seeing some people covered in soot and ash. There were thousands of us walking, and it was quiet. For days there were roadblocks at each end of our block--a police precinct block. For weeks we saw vehicles carrying rubble from the site. There was a metallic stench of smoke and death that lasted for probably a month.

I walked through Ground Zero last week and looked at the reflecting pools and the names of lives lost etched in granite around the perimeter. It struck me that one of the noble things about human beings is that they honor their dead. 

It is ironic that it is counter-balanced by the propensity to kill each other in the name of God.