Like, firefighters, police officers, and the like?
I can think off the top of my head - a handful of my friends' fathers who are in the forces. A neighbor of mine at the end of the street who is a firefighter - the firefighter in our neighborhood.
It's funny. Yesterday, I was skimming through older entries, just because I could. I found the one from November 11th of 2011 and... let me see if I can find it... Heh.
"Though I Walked Home Alone, Guiding Me Home"
There ya go. It was Veteran's Day, I think. Yep.
I wonder what makes people in the service stay in the service. Like, sure, the reason they go initially can either be with filial benefits, a selfless inclination, or even a self-worth kinda thing, y'know? But, what keeps them fighting through the trials and tribulations, carrying the burden of an entire nation on their shoulders and still plowing through their own lives, day by day.
I could only imagine it being passion.
Or, at the very least, passion being one of the things to drive them.
About ten of my friends and I were escorted by two of our teachers to go on a trip to the World Trade Center today; the trip was organized by my good buddy Mike Sbarra.
To say the least, he's the man.
I wonder if he likes The Fray.
♫ The Fray - "Look After You" ♪
It's what I'm listening to now, over and over and over. It fits the mood, more or less. But, let's go into what happened today.
The morning was pretty simple: we left a few minutes before our first period class was to end and then made our way to the train station in our school's town. From there, we made our commute, eventually making the train ride much more entertaining than we anticipated it to be.
We got off, having our antics with such a lively group - on the PATH playing along with the screen's "word scramble."
Mike beat us all in, at least, two seconds flat. The word was "cloth." We reveled at his efficiency, while Alex chalked it up to luck, John declared that he had found out the word all on his own.
Into the city we stepped, battered by the chilled winds and engrossed by the sounds of the construction site - the rebuilding site.
We had time to kill, so we ran to grab a bite and sat for a bit, enjoying our sojourn from school.
As all Seniors, I don't think there wouldn't've been a better way to spend one of our last Tuesdays of my school year.
The buildings were high-rise, naturally, for aesthetics and par customs of the industrialized city. The Freedom Tower, which was still in the making, made me crane my neck upwards, just as Alex had noted when he pointed it out. And the sun was doing a grand job of making me squint to look at it.
Mike doled out our tickets at the entrance; we passed through customs and security without a synch - we had no ill will towards any of the myriad of other people visiting the memorial for reasons similar or completely contrasting from ours.
As soon as I stepped in, having conjured up all these thoughts, all of these imaginative concepts of what it would like, I was handed a pamphlet from Christian, another member of the field trip. I reveled at the quaint and tranquil scenery. It was absolutely beautiful - slim, bland trees speckled the pathway.
The site was obviously still under-construction. However, the things we did see were absolutely impressive.
All of the people there, all there for the same reasons we were, to see the same things we had gone to see... it was really commendable.
The North Pool was immaculate.
We approached it, mingling with complete strangers who looked over the panels with the copious inventory of names. I looked over the panel to find the vast, hollow space where the building used to be, where it used to stand and reside, and found a pool of water collected at the bottom of the square waterfall. The waterfalls were so pristine as they glistened down the walls that it made me think good things, happy things.
The whole time we spent there, we were paused mostly at the pools; they were massive. It's surreal, my friends said - this many people, buildings these colossal.
"Just imagine, everything here would have been covered in dirt and rubble and dust and crap."
Alex mused inwardly, looking to me for some kind of response. I didn't even think of what the scene would have looked like, because I had never seen the Twin Towers in person myself. I don't think I had much of a resolve to when I was in the second grade or so.
What's worse is that, as I traced the letters of strangers names and glided my hands over them and whispered a prayer of peace for them and their families, to me, they were complete strangers.
To other people, they were absolute heroes: best friends, family members, love of their lives, and whatnot. It just wrenched my heart when I watched the water slide into that smaller square in the center of the pool.
There's the trick again: we go through our hardships and our struggles, but people live their lives everyday, not knowing what's going to come.
And there were an unfathomable amount of names of people without faces to me who exemplified the notion of "bad things happen to good people."
We rounded the North Pool, casually graced by a swift sweep of wind that carried a spray with it from the pool. Once we had passed the Museum - which looks pretty cool from the outside, might I add - which we could not enter just yet. Making our way to the South Pool, I felt a bit of an inward recoil.
Andrew, another one of the boys on the trip, said to me,
"You know, without any water running at this one, it makes it look a lot more spooky."
There were no waterfalls cascading from the insides of this pool. Just ripples victim to the currents of the deep winds that swooped through. The walls were dry, the panels present nonetheless. We went around, and I just stared at the inside of the pool.
It looked so small from where we were. It looked so insubstantial when just through my eyes. Though, when I looked across the space to the people on the other side, I kind of realized how massive the buildings were.
Alex and I talked a little bit. As we came to the last side of the South Pool, he made a great observation.
"You know, it's really weird. I look at these names, and it makes me realize that it could have been anybody. I look at this name and I think of your friend Natalie. I look at this one and I think of Owen - see?"
He was right. Even if they could have not been related at all, no filial ties, no association whatsoever with one another, the people in the towers were people. They lived lives, they did what they needed to do, I'm sure.
It's crazy.
And, he stumbled across a name in particular he really wanted to share.
One with "hope" in their name.
 | ||
| Amy Hope Lamonsoff |
- Alex Quowwith so much bad stuff that happened that day
and the people whpo died
it was ironic to see somones name had hope in it
saying maybe this isnt the end of the world per say
but like this instance is only going to make things better for people in the future
hence the 'hope'
It's past 10 PM. Spell-check no longer exists for Alex.
But, yeah. He has a great point - it's not the end of the world.
ProjectRebirth.org & 911memorial.org/blog
Lastly, we visited the Survivor Tree. It was a tough find at first, though we found it easier when we realized it wasn't like any of the other trees in the memorial. It was very impressive, how it still looked healthy, how it was bolted down and had a ring about it. What's more was that when we were told of its outlasting the fall of the towers, Erik suddenly swelled with respect for it.
Then, when Mike explained that they had been moving it all about the place to showcase it, Erik's respect immediately dissipated.
We found that pretty funny.
All in all, it was a really amazing trip. I got another bracelet, and we got to see the Flag of Honor.
It was truly an amazing experience.
It kinda makes you think differently about everything in your life now, y'know?
Thanks Mike.
<3 ~ Monty.
=]
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