by Tony Palmeri
September 11, 2001
My younger brother James works in a building right next door to the World Trade Center. He watched the terrorist attacks from a window. He saw bodies falling from the building, he saw people jumping from the building, and he saw the mayhem on the ground. I see the tragedy through his eyes and it becomes all too real.
All too real.
I write this having just heard from my wife Kristen, who just heard from my mother, that James is on his way to the 59th St. bridge where my parents will pick him up. I am still worried sick about James, and will have difficulty remaining calm until he and my parents are safe and sound in their Brooklyn home. The feeling that the violence has not yet ended, and that further horrors are still possible, is all too real.
All too real.
I am worried sick about my country too. Today we experienced a kind of evil and a kind of violence that most of us have only seen on television or read about in newspapers and magazines. At work today, the most common phrase overheard is "this is surreal." Unfortunately, for the families of the victims it is all too real.
All too real.
What would motivate some one or some group to perform such evil acts? By what kind of delusional thought process does some one or some group become convinced that the murder and maiming of thousands of innocents is justified? I do not have the answers, but I know that such motivations and delusions are all too real.
All too real.
I look at the globe and I see millions of people living in fear of violence, millions of people killed by weapons not even made in their own countries, millions of people suffering from hardships created by economic sanctions and destroyed infrastructures, and millions of people victimized in other ways not of their own making. I hear these millions saying to me: "you now know what it is like to feel what for us has always been all too real."
All too real.
I am a teacher. I work with young people. I sit here and wonder how on earth I can address this awful event in my classroom. Perhaps I will tell my students that, regardless of the horror of September 11, 2001 I still refuse to believe that the world is an awful place. Perhaps I will tell them that I can still dream of a world where peace, love, and justice are not just pipe dreams, but all too real.
All too real.