The Quilt of Life: Crowns of Beauty Made from Ashes

The first time I caught a glimpse of the World Trade Center Towers was during the final days of their construction. I was on a 6th grade field trip heading to the UN in a bus when someone, maybe the driver, pointed out the massive buildings along the way. He let us know that they would soon be the world's tallest twin buildings, overtaking the height of the Empire State Building by more than 100 feet. I was impressed, but once the job was complete, I only saw the towers fr...om a distance as I passed the city while traveling with my family on trips to New England. The first time I went into the city as an adult was just a couple of years after 911. I recall being stunned when visiting the site of where the former towers stood. The hole in the ground was larger than I ever fathomed, and deeper then I could have imagined. There were so many arguments on what to do with the site... It was evident that New Yorker's were quite resilient, (and so were their fellow Americans), so my only thoughts were that whatever they did, the people living there had been through enough, and deserved to see crowns of beauty made out of those painful ashes. Somehow that deep hollow grave needed to go away. Fast forward to 2015... A day trip to NYC gave us a chance to visit lower Manhattan to see what had been done to that pit of horror. The 9/11 Memorial Museum, the Ground Zero Memorial Tower, and everything surrounding them - including the WTC train station has skillful, class act architectural design. Seeing the amount of "history" collected in the museum for those who will "never forget" and for future generations alike was sobering. I don't recall seeing any other event in the history of this country shared with such personal and professional detail. Much of the museum is off limits to photography, but I took as many photos as I could. I just do not think that I captured even a faint glimmer of all that was displayed. After touring the museum though, we walked out to see the memorial fountains. It took a moment to recognize we were seeing that this place HAD come full circle. Over a dozen years had passed since we had been standing close to the sickening pit that needed to go away. Now we were watching large waterfalls cascading down elegant granite walls. Names of those no longer with us remembered. Truly the massive hole HAD now become crowns of beauty made from ashes. God be with and Bless America!