The Oculus and World Trade Center One
In 2001, I was working in Two World Trade Center for Aon, a large insurance broker. This building has since come to be known as the South Tower. My boss, Stephen Poulos, and the Help Desk manager, Michell Robotham, died that day, along with 175 other Aon employees, as well as the thousands of other Americans killed that awful day. Aon is the Gaelic word for one.
On that day, and thereafter for many months, the world was joined as one in sharing the grief of ordinary people, who went to work one day and did not return to their children and wives. As I sat in St. Patrick’s Cathedral at the Aon Memorial Service, listening to Judy Collins sing “Amazing Grace,” I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe the world will now see. Maybe those that are lost will now be found.
Instead, that glimmer of hope I felt while Ms. Collins sang was soon to be dimmed, as our country took the path of vengeance instead of loving thy neighbor as thyself. If the world was aon in grief , we soon became “scailp” or Gaelic for divided. I honor the sacrifice of every American lost since 9/11. And yet each time I read of yet another soldier killed who had enlisted because of 9/11, I grieve again.
I am back in St. Patrick’s Cathedral once again, and a voice is singing...
“Through many dangers, toils and snares...
we have already come.
T’was Grace that brought us safe thus far...
and Grace will lead us home.”
Thank you President Biden.
