A friend, who does not live in New York, told me today that she wanted to visit the newly opened World Trade Center Memorial (which I understand is very beautiful). She said she was surprised to discover that it is not publicly accessible.
Instead, a reservation system requires you to submit your name, address, phone number, email address, and so forth. She found this inherent compromise in civil liberties to be very sad. Her exact words: “It overlays the sadness with more sadness.”
I told her that it might be a kind of meta-memorial. The fact that you need to compromise civil liberties just to see the memorial is, in itself, an apt reminder of something precious that this country has lost in the last ten years.
Which, I suspect, was exactly her point.
What happened on 9/11 was not under our control. The way we (as individuals and as a nation) react to it is.
Yes, an important truth that applies to so many things in life.