All We Have Left

The attack of the World Trade Center by jet planes weaponized and used as bombs by terrorists created a shock and trauma that will endure indefinitely within the collective consciousness of America. The last attack on American soil by another power had occurred when Pearl Harbor was bombed at the start of World War II. Since that time, America had developed a sense of domestic invincibility in terms of potential damage by foreign powers. The towers of the World Trade Center were the world’s tallest buildings at the time of their completion in 1973; they came to symbolize American power, achievement and prosperity. Similarly, their destruction and the loss of over 3,000 civilian lives on that date, and those lost within ensuing decades due to exposure to toxins emitted during the blasts, served to create a sense of American insecurity and doubt. While the residents of New York City, the country and the world rallied to the support of those most severely impacted by this loss, the psychic wounds inflicted by the attack still exist on the part of survivors, their families, and the families of those lost in the attacks.

Jesse lives with the psychological repercussions of her father’s angry, embittered retreat to alcohol in order to numb himself to the loss of his son,

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