How we hand down a catastrophe: My 9/11 story one generation removed
I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. I write about it every year on 9/11.
Nino and I are eating dinner while Y buzzes around the kitchen looking for something to take to his room.
Nino says to me, “What are you going to write about for 9/11?
Y perks up: “Tell everyone you keep donating money to Mamdani. A 9/11 survivor supports Mamdani!”
Nino says, “If you tell people that, they’ll all unsubscribe.”
Then he says, “Have you posted a picture of us getting married at the World Trade Center right before it fell? That’s a nice metaphor.”
Y can’t believe it. He wants to see a picture. So dinner ends with an excavation of photo albums. Y skips over all the people (“I don’t even know them!”) to see the view from the windows. But it’s the Brooklyn Bridge.
I tell him, “I forgot that we paid extra to not have a view of the World Trade Center. It wasn’t a great view if you’re right across the street.”
Y asks if we also paid extra for someone to draw on the picture with a yellow crayon. I sound ancient trying to explain film photography. To make the wedding story complete, I remind Y that he was part of the post-9/11 baby boom.
He says, “I know. I tell all my friends.”
“You do?”
“No! No one cares!”
I ask Y what he and his friends talk about when they talk about 9/11. Y says, “When a friend makes a joke about 9/11, I give them a really serious face and say my mom was in 9/11. And then they think you died and they feel really bad for making the joke and it’s really funny.”
For Y’s generation, 9/11 isn’t personal. It’s something that happened as a predictable response to Cold War politics. The stories of people covered in debris are ancient curiosities, similar to stories of photographers working in dark rooms.
I hold onto World Trade Center wedding pictures and Y holds onto World Trade Center jokes. Twenty-four years later, maybe this is what healing looks like—not forgetting, but transforming memory into something each generation can carry.
Beautiful, P. Thank you for putting us in the picture.
Thanks Paul. Thanks for always reading.
Lily Tomlin said it first: “Comedy equals tragedy plus time.”
Sometimes when Ricky Gervais jokes about some terrible incident and we laugh in a scandalized way, then he will then ask, “Too soon?” and we laugh more.
Agree with the first part. I wish I liked Ricky Gervais but I just can’t. He us hugely popular though
I remember the first time I heard a 9/11 joke from my kids – probably ten years ago. I was shocked. But also intrigued by the idea that it would be too soon for me but not for them.