Time passes but hurt is never far from the surface
THE world will pause today as the victims of 9/11 are remembered.
At Ground Zero, US President Joe Biden will be surrounded by a huge security presence amid fears of a high-profile anniversary attack.
A ceremony will start at 8.46am, US eastern time – the precise moment the first plane hit the World Trade Centre. Among the names of victims solemnly read out will be five Brennans.
When I hear those names it will bring me back to a memorial service held shortly after 9/11.
I used a shared taxi service and a well-spoken elderly lady sat beside me.
“I lost my son,” she said. “I’m coping not too badly but it has been very difficult for my daughter-in-law.”
When I got out, I shook her hand and asked her name. “Mrs Brennan” she replied. I went online to find her details to send her a condolence message.
It was then I discovered there were five men named Brennan who had died. That fact seemed to sum up the sheer enormity of what happened that day.
On the night of 9/11, I wrote in my diary, “DAY THE WORLD CHANGED”.
It barely seems possible it’s been so long since the most horrendous terrorist atrocity in modern history.
On the morning of the 12th, I walked down 8th Avenue towards what was soon to be known all around the world as Ground Zero.
There was silence as I waded through mounds of ash. There were thousands of pieces of paper on the streets. I saw a boarding pass, a flight itinerary and a child’s shoe.
As I got off the train at Grand Central Station, two strangers approached each other, shook hands and said “good luck”.
New York didn’t die and it did recover. But it changed forever and was never quite the same again.
Luckily, amid the devastation there were some happy stories as well.
Finding hero fireman Mike Kehoe alive in his fire station at 6am on the
Friday was a small piece of positive news. Everyone believed he must have died after he was photographed bravely going up the doomed North Tower.
But when I entered his fire station to ask about him, I was told: “No, Mike made it, he’s asleep upstairs.”
After the interview, his colleagues insisted on giving the photographer and I a lift in their fire engine, diverting to our hotel on their way to Ground Zero.
They were heading back to join the search but already knew there was no chance of anyone else being found alive.
In our own home town, there was tragedy everywhere. Dozens died. Our neighbour’s car was left in the train station car park for three months – his wife praying that he may have somehow survived being in the North Tower. His body was never found.
There will also be a small service today at the Queen Elizabeth II September 11th Garden in Lower Manhattan which commemorates all the Commonwealth victims.