This is what a real American memorial actually looks like

There’s been a lot of talk about memorials in the news lately. Protests and torches and heritage and murder. This tumult has centered mostly around civil war era statues of fallen heroes on horseback. I’ve been confused and I’ve been angry, but I haven’t cried.

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This Labor Day Weekend I went to a memorial that made me cry, and it reminded me that the the purpose of remembering is to inspire, not anger. It was at the 911 Memorial in New York City. I went out for the holiday weekend, and the 911 Memorial was the first thing on my list.

Now, I’m not an easy crier. I’ve never cried at a museum before, but I’ll try and put my finger on what happened about 100 feet below street level at Ground Zero. I think it was a mixture of the mood of America right now, and the raw emotion of that place that all came together for me.

To start out, the design of the memorial is genius. You begin above ground at the footprint of the twin towers. Where the skyscrapers stood, now there are matching water features. A giant square hole in the earth that marks where the tower stood with a continuous rush of water over the rim. The water collects in a smaller square drain in the middle. Around the perimeter is a laser etched metal band with names. Lots and lots of names. Since we’re only a few days from the anniversary, family members and friends were placing tiny American flags and other mementos on the name of their loved one. A tiny sign under said, “you are invited to touch the names.”

I was a bit early and the museum wasn’t open yet. After walking around the two water features, I went inside and started to descend into the memorial. All the exhibits are under ground. New York City is loud and busy and overwhelming, so to get you to slow down and focus, the architect funnels people down a low slug dark hallway about 100 yards long. The only source of light are projections of words and you hear a thousand voices describing where they were on September 11th. You can barely see, and by the time you reach the end of this hallway, you are in a different mindset.

That hall of voices opens up into a giant cavern where a 53 ton steel pillar stands. You overlook it from above and you can see the numbers 343, 23, and 37. The spray painted tallies of first responders that died going in while everyone else was going out. But that’s not when I cried.

I went down further, past the crushed fire trucks, past the last staircase, past the exhibit from when they built the original buildings.

I turned another dark corner, this time after the section about the terrorists, and I was face-to-face with a wall of handmade fliers.

People desperately searching for their husband or their daughter or their wife or their child. It was overwhelming. But I still didn’t cry, not yet.

I walked a few feet more, and I started to hear the voicemails. That’s when the tears flowed.

It felt good to cry because it wasn’t out of anger. It wasn’t about trying to keep people out or strip away rights. In that memorial, deep under ground, I felt included. These people that died are my family; they are fellow Americans. Even the ones that look different than me.

Memorials should make us remember the best about ourselves. They should inspire us to do better. They should make us cry.