I never saw the World Trade Center, and I never will. I haven't seen the flat stretch of ground that was once covered by the twin towers.
I'll go to New York City someday and see the site and whatever has been done to memorialize it. When I do, I hope I am shocked, and angered, and saddened, and brought to tears. I hope I break down and grieve for all the lives that were lost in those buildings, and in the Pentagon and in the four jetliners on that day we remember as Sept. 11.
How could I not be torn apart by the worst case of homicide ever committed in America? Only the sort of people who commit such atrocities would not be horrified.
And yet. And yet.
By the time I get to New York, will there have been other assaults that make Sept. 11 seem like any other date on the calendar? Will an even greater number of lives have been shattered, paling all that has gone before?
For most of us, when a killer takes a life, it is a huge loss. When a highway crash wipes out a family, it is horrendous. When dozens die in a flood, or hundreds in a hurricane or thousands in an earthquake, it is disastrous. Each event takes something from us aside from the victims.
This summer, we drove to Oklahoma to visit relatives. My wife, Joan, insisted that we visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial. It was there, at what used to be the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, that terrorism came to America. On April 19, 1995, an American bomber parked an explosives-filled truck at the Murrah building and walked away from a blast that took 168 lives.
My wife already had seen the memorial on a visit to Oklahoma two years ago. When she returned home, she told me, with great difficulty, about its various parts:
The piece of a wall that was left standing to serve as a reminder of what had vanished.
The reflecting pool stretching the width of the site, meant to soothe visitors and allow them to look back at themselves and how they have been changed.
The Field of Empty Chairs, 168 small bronze-and-stone monuments in two sizes representing each adult and child killed by Timothy McVeigh.
The Gates of Time, portals at the west and east entrances bearing the time when America was still innocent - 9:01 a.m. - and the minute after the blast - 9:03 a.m. - when everything had been changed.
The Survivor Tree, an elm that, like America, took a hard hit but did not die that day.
The memorial fence where visitors still place photos, poems, toys and wreaths.
"The first wreath I walked up to was one for little Colton Smith and his brother Chase, the only children of a divorced mother, with a note saying. 'We love you,"' my wife told me through her tears.
We have a grandson named Colten - different spelling, but still an unusual name that we don't often hear.
"I guess the name of Colton made it even more real to me," Joan said. "It could have been our Colten!"
She had told me about all these things, and about the tribute put up by a Catholic church across the street from the memorial. A stone wall contains empty recesses, one for each life lost in the bombing. Facing that wall, and turned away from the Murrah building, is a large, white statue of Jesus. His head is in his hands, and a tear marks his cheek. The inscription on the base of the statue says only: "And Jesus wept."
That statue of Jesus having to turn away from the carnage really upset Joan.
This summer, a gentle rain was falling - the first in months - as we walked across the street to the memorial site. As we stood, wondering where to start, an off-duty security guard took us by the arm and escorted us around the grounds, taking time to explain the damage, the loss, the symbolism. We stopped at each of the parts: the broken wall, the pool, the tree, the chairs, the gates, the fence. So many lives lost, so many lives shattered.
And yet. And yet.
We didn't need the rain to hide our tears, because no tears fell. We viewed the site in reverent silence, but not in anguish. All we could think was, "Yes, this is bad, but Sept. 11 was so much worse. Yes, 168 people were killed here, but thousands died on Sept. 11."
What was wrong with us?
"I don't know whether the fact that only 168 people were killed and not the thousands who died at the World Trade Center, but the emotions were very different," my wife said. "I visited Colton's wreath again. I looked up into Jesus' face again. I never thought I would look at that statue again without crying. I did, in July of 2002 - 10 months after Sept. 11 - and did not cry."
Did the magnitude of the Sept. 11 attacks numb us to the smaller casualty count of the Oklahoma City bombing and other acts of terrorism? The experts say a steady diet of violence in movies, in prime time and in the news can dull us to loss. The body counts must keep piling up to meet our definition of disaster. Maybe that is why we have left Oklahoma City behind as we mourn for last year's victims.
"Or is it a matter of time?" my wife wanted to know. "As years go by, will my anger and sorrow over Sept. 11 ease as it has done for Oklahoma City?"
That has to happen, just so we can continue living our lives in a world of suffering. We have to build a layer over our pain - whether by other experiences or by time - so that the next act of violence won't destroy us.
Still, I pray that when I finally visit the ground that was once the World Trade Center, I won't have hidden my grief so deep that I cannot cry.
Reach Glynn Moore at (706) 823-3419 or gmoore@augustachronicle.com.
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