Something’s Missing

Something’s missing. Something’s gone. Something’s over. 

These are lyrics sung near the end of one of my favorite musicals, Come From Away. It is a Broadway show inspired by true events following 9/11 that exhibits the selfless humanity people are capable of in the midst of tragedy. The show does not, however, shy away from that tragedy. Every time I listen to the soundtrack, its potent storytelling reminds me that every American lost something that day, and now, something is missing. My generation has no idea what that something is.  

When the United States airspace closed after the attacks, all international flights heading toward the U.S. were diverted. Thirty-eight of those international flights landed in a small town called Gander in Newfoundland. The town boasted a population of 9,000 people; after the planes landed, that number increased to 16,000. The last of the planes didn’t take off again until September 15, so the town had to house, feed, clothe, comfort, and grieve with 7,000 scared and angry strangers  for four days. It is truly a stunning piece of theatre, and I get full body chills every single time I listen to it. The song, “Something’s Missing,” always leaves me with tears in my eyes: 

While the music and storytelling are emotionally captivating, they also remind me of what my generation doesn’t and cannot ever understand about what the 9/11 attacks meant to the people who experienced them. Being born in 2004, I watch the videos in horror every year so as not to forget and I mourn — but what I mourn is different from what someone who actually experienced that day mourns. 

I spoke with my mother on the phone last night, and she explained that for her, 9/11 “cracked open this portal to evil that pierced our everyday lives, and the sheer sadness and terror was inescapable.” She was nowhere near any of the attacks, but that didn’t matter. 

“For you, your country was attacked,” she explained. “But for us, we were attacked.” 

“I was driving and pulled up next to this man. He had this ridiculous Uncle Sam hat on and we looked at each other, and we had this tragic connection, but it was also a realization that, ‘We are in this together. We are America, and we are united through this tragedy.’” 

She’s right. For Gen-Z and below, we weren’t attacked — America was. As a self-ascribed patriot, these are one in the same, but fewer and fewer people from my generation consider being an American central to their identity, and their patriotism is at an all-time low. Many of them don’t even know what 9/11 is. So, an attack on America, the place they have been taught to hate, isn’t something to mourn. For some, the attack  is something to defend, or even celebrate. If the comment sections beneath the 9/11 posts in my Instagram feed are any indication, such thoughts are more popular than I would like to admit. 

How can we grieve the loss of something we never knew? We can’t, at least not in the same way. The people who lived it mourn what America lost that day. Those who came after mourn what they missed, if they mourn at all. I mourn the lives lost, but I also mourn what I know is missing: a unified society that believed America was worth fighting for. That’s what’s missing.