Returning to Ground Zero – The 9/11 Memorial.

In 2001, life was very different. Kirrily and I had only been married for four years, our children were yet to be born and I was flying Boeing 737s for Ansett Australia. To this backstory we stood atop the South Tower of the World Trade Center, a happy young couple doing what couples did on the observation deck of the Twin Towers – we had our photo taken ….with a camera and not a phone.

Little did we know that within weeks these massive buildings would be reduced to rubble by weaponised airliners. Lest We Forget.

As I reflect on that day in 2001, I remember Kirrily waking me and watching the scene unfold and it all seemed somewhat surreal. My thoughts drilled down from the enormity of the event  to the donut I had bought in the  World Trade Center cafe. I remembered the lady that had served me, our brief chat and I wondered if she was there now. What was her fate?

Now it was May 2024, and Kirrily and I were in New York again. More than two decades have passed but certain aspects of that day remained vivid as we made the pilgrimage to Ground Zero. Emerging from the subway, an airliner cut through the brilliant blue sky above as we approached the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. That sight and sound could not do anything other than evoke a deep reflection in the two of us.

Firstly, we visited the North and South Pools, two vast square pools with water cascading down their walls, representing where the two towers once stood. The pools edges are engraved with the names of those that lost their lives that day. Office workers, passengers, air crew and of course, the first responders. It is a memorial that is treated with reverence by tourists in a way that I haven’t noted elsewhere – voices seemed hushed.

Nearby was the 9/11 Museum and one of the most impressive museums that I have seen. It is a blend of fact and emotion, reflection and artefacts. Descending a staircase, we entered the  subterranean archaeological heart of the original World Trade Center site. The museum’s flow follows a timeline from that fateful day through the recovery and the aftermath,. The attack on the Pentagon and the loss of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvanian field are also paid due respect.

There are first hand accounts from all perspectives and tangible reminders are everywhere. Pieces of aircraft, deformed badges of deceased police officers, battered fire trucks and many other reminders of the many fire crews that lost their lives that day. One image taken by an evacuating office worker shows a fireman passing by and ascending the stairs – he was never seen again.

That “survivors’ staircase” that proved a lifeline for many has been preserved, as have various pieces of the original metal structure in their twisted and tortured form. Each item had significance and each item was indelibly marked by the lives lost. One cannot help but be moved by the stories of loss, heroism and survival as you stand on the very ground where it all took place.

Kirrily and I spoke very little in the hours we spent in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. For that matter, no-one seemed to be speaking very much. Unlike in 2001, we didn’t pose for a photograph at any point that day – it didn’t seem right. The atmosphere was solemn and I couldn’t help but compare the setting to the last time we had been here. Then we had been a young married couple exploring our world. Now, so much had changed in the wake of 9/11, particularly in the way we travel.

Fortunately, our life since 9/11 has been wonderful and blessed with four children. The way in which we work as airline pilots has been altered forever but that was inevitable. Still, the memory remains of when we stood on that windy observation deck on the South Tower and looked out upon Manhattan Island. Now that deck is no more and the site is known by a simple term, synonymous with that day that changed the world. It is Ground Zero.