The Meaning of my 9/11 Picture on Facebook

Since I have been on Facebook, every 9/11 I have posted the same picture as my Profile Picture. It is a picture of Manhattan looking towards the Empire State Building. This is a picture I took on March 9, 1995 as part of Valparaiso University's Kantorei Spring Tour. The location is a given--especially considering I deliberately made sure 1 World Trade Center was in the Picture Foreground. It was taken from 2 World Trade Center (a.k.a. South Tower). I took it from the 107th Floor Observation Deck and it was one of 4 pictures I took with a primitive Kodak 35mm Camera. One picture was facing south towards the Statue of Liberty, one picture was facing east at the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and 2 were facing north towards midtown.

When 9/11 happened, I immediately found the pictures in my closet. I took the pictures facing south, east, and north and put them at my desk at work the first day I returned after 9/11. I put them in the direction I took them. So, the southern part of my desk has the picture facing south, the eastern part of my desk has the picture facing east, and the northern part of my desk has the picture facing north. Those pictures have never left my desk in the 10 years since. And if you know where I work, you may understand why I've done that. Put it simply: it drives my work.

I am grateful to have seen the towers before they fell. On that fateful March morning, I had a choice to visit the Towers or the Statue of Liberty. I chose the Towers because I thought going to the Statue of Liberty was going to take too long and be tight on schedule time--even though our director, "Doc", was going to Lady Liberty. It turned out to be a wise decision, and I am grateful to have seen the Towers up close before the events of that horrible September morning 6 years later.

I hope someday I can return to Lower Manhattan to "Ground Zero"--the new World Trade Center and it's memorial. I hope on that day to bring those pictures from work and leave them at the site as my way of sharing the WTC Experience pre-9/11. The memories of that chilly morning in 1995 when I visited the site the first time will be with me for the rest of my life--long after the significance of 9/11 disappears from most of mankind's memories.