This morning, sitting alone in a dark office, I reread the Sept. 13, 2001 issue of The Dublin Citizen. Twenty-five years later, the horrors of that day flooded back into my memory, raw and gritty. I was fortunate to be a newspaper publisher, because I had a job to do. Otherwise, I would have been swallowed up in emotions from sorrow to anger and back again, all encased in the naïve belief that this could not happen in America.
That Tuesday morning had been routine. The paper was ready to go to press. But when the second plane flew into the Twin Towers, the world stopped turning.
We called the printer to say we would be late and we started remaking the front page. The staff was in sync, but unusually quiet. It was time for the weekly Rotary lunch meeting, and I grabbed my camera to record reactions of the members. But more than that, I wanted to be with my friends. That meeting didn’t happen, because the Rotarians bypassed the food and went to the flag storage building to load every flag we own. We spread out and lined the two highways until we ran out of flags. Truck drivers honked and gave us a thumbs up. Some of us shouted back and some of us cried.
I was proud of Dublin and proud of my newspaper staff and proud of the Rotarians. I was proud of the ministers who joined together to host a rally of faith and hope and patriotism, and I was proud of the big turnout for that rally. People stood hand in hand singing, crying and praying.
There was compassion and love and kindness. Lots of kindness. We were united.
We didn’t really understand very much that day, but for the next few days we numbly celebrated our unity, praised the strength of America, waved the flag, and believed those sentiments would last.
Twenty-five years later, the thought that lingers in my mind is not just the unbelievable horror of 9-11 -- but the resolve of 9-12 – that time when we were kind to each other and we prayed together. There were no politics that day, no pettiness, no snarky social media.
My prayer is that God will help us find that 9-12 again, without another 9-11.