I have been to the quietest place in New York City. All you hear is the steady hum of the air conditioner and squeaking shoes, yet you are surrounded by people. The 9/11 Memorial Museum is filled with people from all walks of life, religions, and countries, all paying their respects to the 2,996 lives lost in 2001. At first it feels like any other monument or museum, but then it hits you. For me, it was the words, "and her unborn child". Suddenly they were people. Not victims. But people, that had day-to-day lives just like you or me. Everyone has a story about what they were doing on 9/11, but the museum is for their stories.
Their last voicemails are playing as you enter. There is a room filled with pictures of their faces - on their wedding day, graduation, or the day they became a police officer. There are momentos everywhere- flashlights and walkie-talkies that led people to safety, helmets of firefighters that lost their lives, and bottles filled with dust because people knew it was a day to remember. Below is a picture of the "survivor stairs," a stairway that became the safest exit from one of the towers and saved the lives of hundreds.
One of the slurry walls of the original foundation is still standing. You can smell the coolness of the concrete, but also the odor of ash. And it sticks with you.
It is a museum that shows you the horror, the perseverance, and the recovery of a nation. There is no way to describe the feeling that comes over you as you walk the halls, and hear their stories. The best I can do: you don't realize you're cold. You still feel the heat from the sun outside until you hear the first voice or see the first artifact. Then, you're freezing. But you have to stay and see everything. Remember everything. You know that there is something bigger than you happening in those rooms. Lives are changing. People are remembering or seeing for the first time a tragedy that shaped a country.
There are currently events in other countries that are hurting them, and they are nowhere near rebuilding or recovery. We have been down their path already. It is our job to help these countries and our own future generation realize that they can rebuild, that they will heal. And that we will help them- just as they helped us.
