Visit to the Memorials

Though I’ve visited the 9/11 memorial two years ago, today, after learning how to see the deeper meanings in things, I saw it differently. At first when I looked into the huge hole, within it yet another hole, I thought of a children’s song called “There’s a Hole at the Bottom of the Sea,” based off the idea (unknown/belief/myth, whatever it is) that there is a hole at the bottom of the sea leading to a deeper world that we don’t know about. This idea fit well, reflecting on all the unknowns resulting from the deaths of all these people. The water was disappearing into somewhere we couldn’t see, somewhere we really didn’t know anything at all about.

I also felt a void, this hole an astonishing abyss. Sure, the water was passing through, but only on the edges, and it wasn’t even filling up. The hole was just emptiness, and I think that is the very reason why this memorial is so beautifully fit for this tragedy. The events of 9/11 left us with emptiness, a feeling of confusion and “now what?” The tragedy is mind boggling, and the loss is indescribable. This memorial features a hole within another hole, and, forgive me for the play on words, there’s no real closure after something like this; it sort of just gets deeper and deeper as you go on.

In contrast to this, the Vietnam Memorial Wall was nothing but a simple wall. I don’t really understand the significance of putting up such a meager looking thing. There were some things I did find interesting: 1. Why is there an archway to allow you to pass through to the other side at the middle of the wall? After all, it really isn’t that big of a wall anyway.. 2. There was something fascinating about the way they inscribed the words. Especially with the smaller texts, it wasn’t easy to read, especially since it was so widely spaced, each word generally splitting between two blocks. I found that when I read these, some out loud and others in my head, there was a sort of monotone to it due to the difficulty in reading it quickly. It sort of gave me a dull feeling, since I couldn’t really put emotion into the quotes the first time I was reading it. I felt like a narrator of a really boring historical article, and it made me think of the dreadful feelings post-Vietnam. Loss isn’t easy, and sometimes it can really suck the emotion out of us.

I also really liked this quote: “One thing worries me- will people believe me? Will they want to hear about it, or will they want to forget the whole thing ever happened?” First of all- who is the speaker? Why are these quotes nameless? It also made me think of the Holocaust and its survivors. I feel like this is a feeling that can come after such intense tragedy, where your world is destroyed, but you wonder if it will matter in the least to anyone else.

Both of these memorials have one thing in common: acknowledgement of the tragedy’s survivors. I think it’s important to note that the fact that there are survivors doesn’t mean the tragedies, or the survivors themselves, are any less tainted.