Robert Klitzman Reflects on "The Uses and Misuses of 9/11"

Robert Klitzman, whose sister was killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, reflects on the 10th anniversary of the attacks in The Nation. He writes,

Ten years ago today, my sister died at the World Trade Center. That day, the world changed – as did my life, and that of my family.

Every year since, on the anniversary of that day, my family and I debate whether to go to ground zero, whether to read the names of the deceased before the world’s news cameras.

For the first two anniversaries of her death, we went to the site of the attack. Then we stopped. It was too painful, opening up too many wounds. We have commemorated her in other ways -- going to her the grave where we buried, in a baby coffin, the two bones that of hers that had been found. We revisited the house on Long Island where we all grew up.