Eight years ago today I had big plans. My good friend, theater producer and political consultant, Chad Gracia, who lived in Soho at the time, was going to host one of his classic birthday parties. Nearly 100 people would gather in his large, bi-level loft … aptly termed the Soho Salon where he had hosted evenings with the likes of Shimon Peres, Eve Ensler, and psychologist Sheldon Solomon … for a huge celebration rife with heady chat, pricey wines and artisan cheeses.
Of course, his birthday being September 11, the party never happened. Instead, I watched the towers fall from his roof, and what was to be a wild blow-out turned into a center of grief, fear, and consolation. But tonight he’s hosting his first birthday party in eight years. It took him that long to be in the mood, and feel it was proper.
I remember thinking in the days after 9/11 that carefree joy would never return, but, of course, it does. Yet it’s different. I know that the zealous conversations at the party tonight will be laced with recollections of that day eight years ago, but it will be the intense remembrances of those fascinated and moved to have seen and survived, and not the sobbing gloom it was seven or six years ago.
There’s a certain guilt to getting over things. In a sense, the tragedy of life is that we get used to it. But to endlessly despair, and drown in the horrors of the past, is perhaps a greater tragedy. And that’s why I’m going to Chad’s party. I believe that even those who died on this day eight years ago would want him to have a happy birthday.
Photo via Flickr.