I know this blog has been full of light heartedness and jokes but I wanted to take a moment to talk about something a lot more serious.
Chris and I agreed that we couldn’t visit New York without paying a visit to the World Trade Centre Memorial. There won’t be any photos from there I’m this post simply because we didn’t take any. Lots of people were and that’s fine we both just felt it wasn’t the right place and wanted to absorb the atmosphere undistracted.
In my opinion they have done the memorial really nicely. Two huge black square waterfalls sunk into the ground on the footprint of the two towers. Names of all those lost engraved around the edge. They are humbling in magnitude and darkly beautiful.
There is a museum on site so we decided to return the next day to do it.
We were told it took 1-2 hours. It took us four.
We both feel that when the horrors of 9/11 happened we were old enough at 7 and 8 to understand that something terrible had happened but not old enough to have empathy for the situation. For me the realisation only came a couple of years ago at the tenth anniversary ceremony when I watched the footage of the planes with fresh eyes. The museum is really well done and well worth a visit. It is such an powerful experience to be on the spot were such monstrosities took place and see the damage that was caused to physical structures like the steel from the building.
But seeing the faces of the people who were lost was overwhelming. The fill all four walls of a large room and it is difficult to comprehend the number of lives that were extinguished on that day.
Chris and I left that museum physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. It took me a couple of days to even process what we saw and felt enough to find any words. If you are ever in NY I strongly suggest a visit. It seemed wrong to us to visit that city and not spend some time learning about the event that rocked the city to the core.
Nothing I can say can express my emotions from the day. Go yourselves and see.
Love,
B
Becky and Chris take America 