Falling Into the Void

Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down!

I recently had someone comment to me, when I had complained that the families of those who perished at the World Trade Center would have naught but a hole in the ground to view, retorted, "Well, they've finished the memorial for them."  I was not interested in seeing what that looked like, but now that I have, I am appalled by the design that shows a literal hole.

Imagine, if you will, that you are the parent of a 20-year-old woman, who graduated with honors from Brown University.  She was flying that morning, from Boston back to Orange County, and was on a hjacked United plane . . . a plan that was downed by evil.  (Lisa Frost)

Imagine, if you will, that your husband was an energetic young man, and a take-charge-kind-of-guy - so much so, he recited the 23rd Psalm with a 9-1-1 operator before uttering the phrase, "Let's roll" . . . just before his plane crashed into the ground.  (Todd Beamer)

Imagine, if you will, you were the colleague of a FDNY firefighter.  Phsyically fit, he raced up the building, miraculously reaching the floor where the planes had hit.  Imagine the relief, however brief, the wounded and the dying on that floor felt to see a firefighter finally arrive . . . before the towers and those in them fell into the ground.  (Orio Palmer)

Do you see why this design is horrible?  It relives the terror and evil of that day, when innocent people, essentially, were forcibly placed in their graves.  For many, it truly was their grave as no physical matter of the person was ever found.  How would you feel, as someone who knew and loved someone who died that day, watching the water just . . . fall . . . into a black void, with no bottom that can be seen?

There is a reaon why rising suns and other imagery is placed on tombstones.  We want to imagine our loved ones being lift up "on eagles' wings," as the hymn goes, and their souls "slipping loose the bonds of earth."  Yes, we visit a grave knowing that they lie beneath the marker, but this is not meant to be a grave - it is meant to be a memorial.  We want to remember them starting off that morning on a clear late-summer day.  And instead - a black void is presented to stir our memories.

And . . . oh yes, where else have I seen a black square presenting such a powerful image?

h/t to Sondrakistan.com for the image.