This story, inspiring as it is (no pun intended), made me reflect on the road we've taken in the eleven and a half years since that searing, sad-beyond-words day in a September from a different world.
In the months and even years following the recovery of the fallen and the clearing of the World Trade Center site, there were intense, and even angry, debates about how--and what--to rebuild.
There were those who felt strongly, and understandably, that nothing should rise there, that the site would always be essentially a cemetery and should never have any commercial activity on it at all, that it should reflect the emptiness all of us feel because of those we lost. There were also those (myself among them) who felt that a significant, appropriate memorial should include, if not a rebuild of the Twin Towers, at least one tall building so that we could remember not only how people died, but also how they lived.
The debate was public, extremely long, frequently acrimonious and, far too many times, counterproductive. And in the end, we got to the right result. Two sunken waterfall fountains, marking the footprints of the towers. And at least one amazing new tower, overlooking the entire site and all of Lower Manhattan.
Remembrance, and renewal. Emptiness, and progress.
If nothing else, all of this proves that democracy really works. We should try it more often.
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