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One Morning in America: Reflections on Tragedy, History, and Community By Marta N. Zielyk Marta Zielyk holds the position o f Senior Diplomatic Interpreter in the US Department of State. All thoughts expressed in this article are her own and do not reflect the views of the US government. Shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks, I called the English language editor of this journal and offered to write an article on the topic. The attack occurred, I told her, while I was in Kyiv, and thus I thought I might have something different to say. Perhaps I might have a different perspective on the events. She readily agreed that this would, indeed, be a timely and interesting slant on an event that has become a global matter. In the following days, as I considered what to write, I found myself increasingly avoiding the computer, not wanting to begin writing. Days turned into weeks, and still I didn’t want to bring those events back into my consciousness as sharply and painfully as they had penetrated it on that day. But that’s not the whole truth behind my procrastination. I also avoided the computer for a much simpler reason: I was afraid that anything I wrote would sound trite and redundant. After all, anyone who has read the copious newspaper and magazine articles and listened to analyses, news reports and talk shows, must think that it had all been said. How presumptuous of me to think that I suffered differently than 250 million other Americans. To a certain degree that is indeed correct: as an American, I do think it’s all been said, and far more eloquently than I could ever say it. But I am convinced that I, as a Ukrainian-American, that we - as a community - do have a unique perspective on these events. All communities suffered - no matter how deep or how shallow their roots in the US. And tragically, the events did not spare the Ukrainian- American community, either here in the United States or in Kyiv. It was in Kyiv, in a wonderfully plush hotel room in the newest hotel in the capital - the Premier Palace - that I watched the events of September 11 unfold. I had been there for a week, working with a high-level US military delegation headed by a three- star general from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When we realized that we were watching our way of life being altered forever, the delegation decided to suspend the rest of the program and we all, singly, or in small groups, turned to CNN. While the members of the military were understandably devastated by the attack on the Pentagon, worrying about their friends and colleagues, I was watching the events from my own perspective. I remember thinking: “Please God, please don’t let anyone in our community be forever lost in that rubble in New York.” For a while, I thought that God might have listened, because there was no immediate information that ’’someone we know” might be among the missing. I thought God would surely have to see that we Ukrainians had sacrificed enough of our own people. It wasn’t so. As we now know, there were Ukrainian-Americans among the victims in the World Trade Center. We grieve for them and their families. I grieved in Kyiv while trying desperately to find a way to get home to the United States. Intellectually, of course, I realized that I was probably safer in Kyiv than I would have been either in my home in Washington or in New York, where my family lives. Nevertheless, I experienced an almost instinctual pull to return to the comfort of the familiar, no matter how dangerous it might be. Yet, I had to wait three days until I could even begin to attempt a return to the US. After the first 48 hours during which I couldn’t bear to leave my room and miss a minute of CNN coverage, I felt the need to take a break. Seeking some sense of normalcy I chose to do mundane things - I visited a museum, I went into a Ukrainian hastronom, I booked a manicure. Everywhere I went, Kyivites who learned that I was from the US and, moreover from New York, were overwhelmingly concerned. They offered condolences to me, and through me, to all Americans. They sympathized, they expressed support for us, outrage at the terrorists. I wandered into a little known and recently organized Wax Museum on vulytsia Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, and two wonderful ladies offered to share their afternoon tea with me. The young woman who was doing my nails silently produced a box of tissues when she saw my eyes welling with tears as we talked about the events. The staff at the hotel was unusually solicitous to me and to the other members of the delegation who were unable to leave Kyiv. I will never forget the kindness in their eyes, the empathy in their voices, their soothing gestures. Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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