Before and After
By Kim Liao*

September 9, 2022

September has always been one of my favorite times of year. The summer heat dissipates, and back to school shopping promises an exciting academic year ahead. Nothing gets me jazzed like notebooks and pens, binders and highlighters. I’ve always been a nerd.

In September 2001, I was a high school senior on Long Island. I was 17, getting ready to apply for college, and I had just bought my first car with my whole life’s savings. It was red. All I wanted were some fuzzy dice for the rearview mirror. On my way to school, I’d stop at 7-11 for a buttered roll and hazelnut coffee with lots of cream, lots of sugar. My world was so small.

The morning of 9/11 was sunny and warm, with an autumnal snap to the air. I was in my AP Government class, which I found so boring, and was definitely zoning out when a classmate returned from the main office. “A plane hit the World Trade Center,” he said. We looked at him blankly. Class continued.

I wish I could remember more. I wish I could return to that morning before school, to the moments before we knew, and cherish them a little more. Appreciate the placid calm before it all turned upside down.

Before 9/11, I was a teenager, concerned only with playing soccer, getting good SAT scores, working at the local bookstore, and getting the heck out of my cloyingly small town.

After 9/11, I grew up, and entered the adult world. I was forced to face the scary facts of reality and feared for the future. All my delusions of safety and seclusion shattered in a single day.

9/11 sliced my life in two: child before, adult after.

Since then, 21 years have passed. If my memory of 9/11 were a child born on that day, they would be old enough to drink, to vote, to enroll in the military. My memory has changed, too—evolved, faded, deepened. This brings me to the question of memorials.

For as long as I’ve been a writing teacher, I’ve taught writing about memorials. My students address questions concerning the persistence of memory, and the threat and solace of forgetting. We consider who should be memorialized, and what memorials should be revised or reinvented. You might say I’m obsessed with the act of memorializing.

Memorials are architectural repositories for our memories, places that offer us spaces to grieve, to remember, to let our memories evolve with time as the stone or bronze statues weather, as oxidation blurs the sharp edges of letters, names etched in perpetuity.

Why do we need memorials? So we don’t forget? Or to remind us why we need to remember? What should we remember? How do we confront legacies that change and shift, and sometimes need to be rewritten? How can our memorials be alive and thoughtfully evolve with our society?

The first time I visited the 9/11 Memorial was four years ago, at night. The waterfalls cascaded into darkness, the pools creating a void that could hold all of these memories, these inexplicable losses.

The names carved into the bronze panels around the pools are cut out from the metal, so the name itself is an absence, a void. Golden light pours through where someone’s presence should have been, a soul fire extinguished too soon.

When I think of the 9/11 Memorial, I recall visiting that same patch of land 21 years ago, two months to the day after 9/11. It was called Ground Zero then. As I approached the site, I encountered a gigantic, deep hole that was still smoking. The wreckage was still on fire two months later. It was like a mouth with a gaping tooth missing.

I remember the acrid, bitter smell. These smells were harbingers of the deadly toxins that would sicken so many first responders who had come to save lives, extinguish fires, and clean up the site. We just didn’t know how those fires would take their toll for years and decades to come.

At 17, I wanted to fathom why this had happened, to learn about global politics. Over subsequent months and years, I would try to educate myself about why terrorists had wanted to attack America, and why our government had decided to invade Afghanistan.

The night I went to Ground Zero, I attended a nearby candlelight vigil with a friend, and we prayed for peace. We put our bodies to work expressing our protest to the impending invasion of Afghanistan. With an impassioned but insubstantial crowd, we walked from Battery Park up West Street along the Hudson River, singing and chanting, watching the stars come out over this resilient city.

I was naïve then; I believed that every small action had some kind of importance. I thought my words and actions mattered in the grand scheme of things. That sense of activism faded over time, as adult life wore me down, and I grew jaded, gave up hope, felt exhausted, and was tempted to surrender to apathy.

But twenty-one years later, I see the wisdom of 17-year-old Kim. And every September, I’m inspired by the strong convictions and energy of my John Jay freshman writing students. Thinking back on that autumn that turned me into an adult, I still remember our clear hope for a bright future in the face of utter darkness. Our hope was a candle flame, burning through the night.

 

*Kim Liao is a Lecturer in the Writing Program of the English Department at John Jay College. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Catapult, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, Salon, The Millions, and others. As a creative writer, former legal writer, and professional editor, her teaching interests include helping students write effectively in different genres across disciplines both inside and outside of the academy.

 

Hope for the Future
Presented by
Cal Mathis*

Innocent lives lost, widespread fear, and great anxiety griped our nation and city in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Heightened concerns about future terrorist attacks were prevalent.

At that time, we also shared grief and a spirit of unity. People supported professionals that tended to the effected, forensic specialists who looked for remains to bring closure to the families, and philanthropic services that assisted survivors, first responders, and family members of victims.  People rallied around our military servicemembers seeking justice against those responsible for the attacks.

However, in the aftermath, we also witnessed distrust against communities and the enactment of restrictions on civil liberties. The public health and economic consequences of the attacks underscored disparities and generated discord.

Thankfully, there have been no terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 in more than two decades. Many of us continue to work for global peace and understanding. I  am proud to contribute to this effort thanks to the foundation I received at John Jay.

Efforts to prevent and guard our country and city from future terrorist attacks shape our lives today. 9-11 transformed curriculum, scholarship and practices in counterterrorism, security and cybersecurity and resulted in advancements in forensics, fire science, emergency management and health, among other disciplines. Lessons from this catastrophe influence our experiences in societal institutions.

While today I look back and pay tribute to those who lost their lives on that day and 21 years later, including some of my colleagues, I also look ahead with hope.  My hope for a better and more inclusive society remains strong. It has inspired my wife and me to establish a scholarship in global security studies to enable traditionally underrepresented John Jay students to make a difference in security management and homeland security.

Let this candle I light today, shine a bright light for our future.  May we see the day when a great peace will embrace the world. May we realize the day when people of all races and creeds forge a common bond in true harmony. And may we experience every day the achievements of generations of John Jay students and alumni, safeguarding human rights and advancing justice.

 

*Cal Mathis serves as  the Chief Security Officer at S&P Global.  He earned a  Master of Science in Protection Management in 2009 and a Bachelor of Arts in Defiant Behavior in 1987 from John Jay College. As a member of the Board of the John Jay College Foundation, Cal Mathis, with his wife Arlette, established a scholarship in security management and homeland security for John Jay undergraduate students.