The Anniversary I Wish I Didn’t Share With My Husband
During a visit in May to the Maritime Museum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I watched a film about a 1917 cargo-ship explosion that killed more than 1,700 townspeople and injured many more. The grainy black-and-white images of the flattened city catapulted me back to the devastation of Lower Manhattan after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Halifax suffered a blizzard following the cargo-ship catastrophe, and the sight of the city covered in a deep blanket of snow recalled the dust and debris from the once-glimmering towers that coated the Financial District. When I heard the recorded voices of the Haligonian survivors recounting their memories, I walked out of the small theater to cry.
TL;DR
- The author compares the devastation of Halifax in 1917 to the destruction of Lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.
- Her husband, Jeffrey R. Smith, was killed on September 11, 2001.
- Her family contributed personal memories to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
- She finds it difficult to listen to her family's recorded memories.
- The author emphasizes that 9/11 victims were civilians killed in a terrorist attack, not casualties of war.
- She acknowledges the significance of the memorial but is staggered by the magnitude of being part of this history.