Westover: Visiting 9/11 Memorial & Museum evoked fresh empathy, 23 years later

By affording visitors a glimpse of something deeply individual about one or two victims, the museum suddenly made them all more real.

Published Sep 10, 2024  •  2 minute read

Linda Terry places a flower near the name of a friend and former client, who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack in New York City at the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum on Sept. 10, 2021. Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT /AFP via Getty Images

If you’re reading this, you probably remember what you were doing on Sept. 11, 2001. (Yes, that’s a nod to newspaper demographics.)

In the 23 years since, like me, you’ve probably unwittingly filled in your own memory of the day with all the details that came after. Given we’ve had more than two decades to absorb the tragedy, I thought there wasn’t much new to learn.

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Turns out I was wrong.

This summer we visited the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City. It brought home the events of the day in way that small-screen documentaries and written accounts just can’t match.

We can all close our eyes and imagine the before and after skyline.

But standing at the reflection pool, taking in the immense footprint of what was once a 100-story tower, made the scale of the attack more real, more tangible.

The same was true inside the high-ceilinged, echoing halls of the museum itself. Huge pieces of a detritus (a radio tower bigger than my house) juxtaposed against the daily minutiae of office life, captured the brute physical destruction without losing sight of the very human tragedy.

Done badly, a memorial like this could feel macabre or saccharine. But this was neither of those things.

It’s hard to describe the feeling you get walking past immense, recognizable artefacts of recent history. A cleaved firetruck, its nose missing. And the small, deeply personal items. A fire chief’s helmet, entirely unscathed.

But perhaps the most moving part of the exhibit was a space where a photo of each victim lined the walls. Every few minutes a new person was spotlighted, with a recording of family or friends sharing a personal remembrance.

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There’s that old saying: A million deaths (or in this case, 2,977) is a statistic, one death is a tragedy. By affording visitors a glimpse of something deeply individual about one or two victims, the museum suddenly made them all more real.

I learned about a little girl, a baby really. A two-year-old named Christine Lee Hanson.

She was killed, along with her parents, on a flight to Disneyland of all places. The irony is almost too much to bear.

I listened as her grandmother recollected having a big cast on her foot, and being concerned Christine might be afraid of the unwieldy thing. Instead, she ran to the washroom and got her grandmother some Band-Aids, which she tenderly applied to the cast. If that doesn’t make you weep.

As I wandered around the museum, I only took one picture. It was of the final column removed from the rubble, decorated with remembrances scrawled by first responders. The rest of it felt too vast, or too personal, to photograph.

For me, the visit was a reminder that nothing replaces the kind of discovery that happens when we get out from behind our screens – phones, televisions or otherwise – and draw inspiration from the real world, to make memories in our mind’s eye.

A quiet morning spent in the company of tangible rubble and poignant remembrances evoked fresh empathy, 23 years later.

There’s always more to learn, if you know where to look.

Suzanne Westover is an Ottawa writer.

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