I was recently reminded of the horrific events of 9/11 by reading an account of Caroline Overington’s interview with the widow of one of the victims. Caroline Overington is a Walkley Award winning journalist and I have just finished reading her book “Only in New York: How I Took Manhattan (with the kids)”, a fascinating and humorous account of her experiences as a foreign correspondent who relocated to New York from Sydney together with husband and two year old twins.
We are of course approaching the 7th anniversary of 9/11 and it was with rather a sense of chagrin that I realised that, for me at least, time has significantly diminished my awareness of the enormity of that act of atrocity. Not least because I was not there, I am not American, nor did I know anyone directly affected by the event, but also because time has a way of stealing away and trivialising our righteous anger and outrage about all such tragic episodes in history. Of course the enormous scale of the horrors perpetrated through such episodes as the Holocaust, acts of genocide, mass destruction or any manifestation of man’s hatred against man impairs our ability to identify with and really register it on a personal level. It’s easier just to turn our minds away and think of something less confronting.
It is however when we can condense the epic scale of such tragedies down to a smaller frame and see the effects on the lives of ordinary individuals like ourselves, that we can truly comprehend the devastation and destruction of humanity that such events represent.
Caroline Overington was privileged to have the opportunity of interviewing Sally Alameno, the widow of Andy Alameno, who was an employee of Cantor Fitzerald, a company located across 5 floors just above the floor where American Airlines Flight 11 smashed into Tower One of the World Trade Centre. He was one of 658 employees of that company killed in the attacks. She and Andy and their children are pictured above right.
Caroline Overington's account of that interview is moving in its simplicity and directness. As she says, this was just a normal Mum who got up one morning, coped with the everyday hectic morning family routine, saw her husband off to work, took her kids to kindergarten and returned to find that her world had been ripped asunder. This young woman and her little children in an instant had lost their beloved husband and father, with no chance to say farewell. I think we can all relate to the pain of that. If we magnify this individual family tragedy across all the victims of that act and all such acts of infamy whenever and wherever they have and are occurring, we get just a small glimpse of the insanity, futility and assault on humanity such evil represents. Let us never forget to be angry and never lose our sense of outrage at acts of vengeance perpetrated against the innocent.
3 comments:
Even though I'm originally from New York, I hadn't been to ground zero until a few weeks ago. But it just looked like another construction site. It, too, has entered into the everyday. Perhaps horrible things are too big to think about too often, and so the occasional reminder is all we can handle, is enough to make us remember that the world holds the dignity of everyday life and the depths of evil.
My sister-in-law worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, but in a different office in NY. She lost countless friends and colleagues, and her job (that she loved).
Thanks for your comment Laura. I agree we have to try and deal with what we can, when we can, and sometimes the everyday is hard enough, but it's important to honour the big events too,which is why memorials and remembrance services are such a meaningful part of life. I will certainly be honouring more consciously this 9/11 all those ordinary Americans who lost their lives and their families.
This is a brilliantly written piece Annie. Lest We Forget is a very special phrase and so very apt for 9/11. Like the assassination of JFK and the landing on the moon, I'll never forget where I was and what I was doing when this evil tragedy occurred. Thank you for reminding us all.
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