Local Opinions invited some of those who had letters printed in The Post after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to write again. Below, the original letters in italics, followed by the new ones.
The healing has come
I’m fine, actually. Never been better. I made sure my employees had a chance to speak with an EAP in order to process their feelings. I even attended the group session myself. I am one calm, collected, middle-aged woman, centered and at peace with myself and the world around me. So why have I been losing my hair in clumps ever since that day? Is this how I allow myself to scream?
In retrospect, it would have been healthier to scream as long and as loud as I needed. I went through a stage where I didn’t really know whom to trust. I asked myself: Who is my enemy? What does my enemy look like? Female or male? Swarthy or pale? Crazy or religiously fervent? Where will I be safe?
In 2004, at Heathrow airport in London, I smiled inwardly as they detained anyone who looked vaguely Middle Eastern. I am ashamed of this now. Just recently, at the Little Rock airport, I felt angry when the Transportation Security Administration agent did not check out a medical device that I use for sleep apnea, as TSA staffers do at National or Dulles. I wanted to say: “Stay vigilant. Be ready. Don’t slip into complacency!” But even with occasional fears, the healing has come.
I have found three things that have sustained me and made me feel safe: a deeper relationship with my God, a new husband who helps me keep it all in perspective and a semi-serious plan to retire to Panama.
— Ellen Zamaria, Woodbridge
Carrying on their work
After 9/11, I painted the ice of Antarctica, filled in blue oceans and added green land masses to 35 foam balls so the third-graders could pin sequins on the poles, and used ribbons to fasten equators, prime meridians and other longitude lines. I could picture the five friends I lost on Flight 77 laughing at the mess I was making, but feeling proud that I was fulfilling their commitment to geography education.
Ten years later, I am still teaching and trying to infuse geography into the curriculum. In preparation for a unit on explorers, I am planning an expedition to our school’s newly acquired property so my students can explore and photograph the topography of the land. They will be creating a geographic and historic time capsule for posterity.
I feel as if Joe Ferguson, Ann Judge, Sarah Clark, Hilda Taylor and James Debeuneure, traveling that day as part of a National Geographic program, created a geographic and historic time capsule for posterity, too. I think they would be proud that my love for geography, my passion for teaching and my gratitude for their time in my life has never left me.
— Liz Jacobi, Kensington
An honor beyond words
I won’t let anyone change the school-style clock in our Pentagon office, frozen at 10:35 since 9/11, probably when its electronic roots in the destroyed wedge vanished. We evacuated, agonized to leave shipmates irretrievably behind, returned months later to fresh paint, carpet, furniture, rather than smoke and mildew smells, and found our old clock. The clock didn’t change; I did. I look at it several times a day, my silent ritual of rededication to the naval service.
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