Last Fri­day, I sat all morn­ing dur­ing the 9/11 memo­r­i­al in New York, car­ried live on tele­vi­sion. I have done this al­most every year for the past 25 years, and on those few oc­ca­sions where I could not view the live cer­e­mo­ny, I looked at the record­ing lat­er in the day. This time, I stood for all sev­en mo­ments of si­lence giv­en as trib­ute. For the first six ho­n­our­ing the main events of that day, which took the lives of al­most 3,000 peo­ple, and the newest mo­ment. The lat­ter ho­n­ours 9,000 first re­spon­ders, re­cov­ery work­ers and res­i­dents who died from tox­ic dust and 9/11-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es since.

As I watched the trib­utes at the read­ing of the names, tears were my on­ly com­pan­ion. My heart was so heavy to see the de­scen­dants of those killed, es­pe­cial­ly those born af­ter 2001 who on­ly have pho­tos and the sto­ries told. Peo­ple’s re­pressed hurt was ev­i­dent, too.

Years ago, I would have con­sid­ered my­self sap­py for hav­ing such deep emo­tions for strangers who ap­pear fleet­ing­ly on my screen. But in those 25 years since, I have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plore trau­ma.

Vic­ar­i­ous trau­ma­ti­sa­tion is re­al. It is an in­di­rect stress re­ac­tion that oc­curs when you ab­sorb the pain, suf­fer­ing, or trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences of oth­ers. Even though you are aware that you are not or did not have the trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence, your body still ex­pe­ri­ences the emo­tion­al, phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive ef­fects as though you were present (https://health.cleve­land­clin­ic.org/vic­ar­i­ous-trau­ma).

My pain comes from a vivid mem­o­ry of the events in my liv­ing room, watch­ing the day un­fold. I have re­mained com­pelled by the mul­ti­ple lay­ers of suf­fer­ing and dra­ma, con­stant­ly re­turn­ing to sur­vivors’ sto­ries and con­sum­ing 9/11 me­dia over the years.

In Sep­tem­ber 2001, I was close to my 39th birth­day and had al­ready ex­pe­ri­enced more trau­ma than any­one should in a life­time. By then I re­alised that trau­ma lay­ers it­self on trau­ma, sit­ting on the psy­che, dis­tort­ing every­thing in one’s mind and life, mak­ing all re­la­tions dif­fi­cult, es­pe­cial­ly with­out hav­ing an in­ter­ven­tion.

My life has been in con­stant in­ter­ven­tion for decades now, com­mit­ted to restor­ing or re­pair­ing what broke in me and shift­ed the tra­jec­to­ry of my life. There is a need to heal; to build new­er, health­i­er, more hope­ful and health­ful ex­pe­ri­ences for my­self and those with whom I have re­la­tion­ships. It’s been tough work, but I cel­e­brate the progress.

This 2026 ob­ser­vance, though, was lay­ered on the grief of a re­cent video cir­cu­lat­ing show­ing a man at his dad’s fu­ner­al ser­vice in com­plete dis­tress from the abuse he claimed he suf­fered and ac­cus­ing a rel­a­tive of de­nial or pre­tence about the suf­fer­ing.

I re­coiled.

Fu­ner­als are billed “in lov­ing mem­o­ry of” the de­ceased. My guess is that on most oc­ca­sions, the fu­ner­al plan­ner is cel­e­brat­ing their ex­pe­ri­ence/mem­o­ry or ob­serv­ing the es­poused deco­rum of not speak­ing ill of the dead.

I am al­ways talk­ing about how much we lie at fu­ner­al ser­vices. My strong op­po­si­tion to eu­lo­gies that scrape up a fun­ny sto­ry or talk about what peo­ple liked to eat or re­count some­thing to hu­man­ise the dead be­yond the truth of their life is known.

This man’s trau­ma res­onat­ed. More than that, I was trig­gered.

When I was suf­fi­cient­ly able to process a sex­u­al in­frac­tion in my ear­li­er life, I be­came very an­gry and had many thoughts of con­fronting the per­pe­tra­tor. The anger boiled over when he died sud­den­ly, thwart­ing my plan. I called this old­er cousin un­cle. As a much younger cousin, say­ing aun­ty or un­cle was prac­tis­ing “re­spect,” but re­spect had not been ac­cord­ed to me, though, a mere child.

I re­called prepar­ing for his fu­ner­al armed with a se­cret plan to dis­play my anger and hurt at his grave­side. In my dis­tress, I shared with a friend who was ful­ly em­pa­thet­ic but gen­tly dis­suad­ed me.

That friend came to my house the night be­fore the fu­ner­al to com­fort me, but I think it was more to help avoid a pos­si­ble in­car­cer­a­tion if I car­ried out my plan. That trau­ma was among the ear­ly life in­frac­tions that had al­ready “gift­ed” me a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion in my mid-teens.

We must be more hon­est about the abus­es we suf­fer. When we head­line with “lov­ing mem­o­ry,” we should be will­ing and wise to recog­nise that “lov­ing” ex­pe­ri­ence is not the on­ly one. Some­times, it is the fur­thest from the truth of the dead per­son’s life, as the hurt­ing man con­tend­ed.

“Yuh lie. Yuh lie... He was not per­fect. He beat all ah we... he beat me so bad. He abuse me. He abuse me,” he wailed un­con­trol­lably, ex­press­ing his pain with over­whelm­ing clar­i­ty.

I want­ed to hold his head in my bo­som and con­sole him.

So many fam­i­lies’ sto­ries are ex­em­pli­fied in this un­for­tu­nate oc­cur­rence. And the worst part of this for me was the lack of com­pas­sion or sen­si­tiv­i­ty from the of­fi­ciant who tried un­suc­cess­ful­ly to rope the suf­fer­ing in­to his ser­mon, clue­less about an ap­pro­pri­ate re­sponse to the out­burst.

I en­treat us: deal with trau­ma in the liv­ing years. Have courage to con­front the demons and give grief a healthy ex­po­sure, or it will ex­pose it­self.