This September 11th marks 20 years to the day since the 9/11 attacks. 20 years is a long time. Long enough to see the country reel in shock together, mourn together, stand together, and—for those of us lucky enough to survive—eventually move on together.
One thing that we will never do, however, is forget. Back in 2001, the KnifeCenter was located in the Washington, D.C. area. After the second plane hit, we closed our doors and sent all employees home to be with their families. The atmosphere, empty except for scrambled military planes and hijacked jets, felt like it threatened sudden violence to the whole country at once. As the reports rolled in all day—disorienting, chaotic, yet repetitive in their lack of detail—we all knew that things would never be the same.
Pictured above are two knives from Chris Reeve, both affected by 9/11 in very different ways. Both knives belong to Matt D, our custom knife buyer. Both are made in America: one, a Sebenza from 2004 with a unique expression of the New York skyline dedicated in remembrance to the Twin Towers; the other, a Mnandi made on September 10th, 2001 and left unopened to this day.
If you lived through 9/11, I think you understand why Matt never opened that Mnandi. Why he couldn’t bear to do it. Why he never will. What’s so special about September 10th, 2001? Nothing. Unremarkable. Just another day. Looking back on the last 20 years, it feels like maybe it was the last unremarkable day any of us ever had.
And yet, the teeming promise of that unremarkable day is still with us, tucked away in crisp, delicate paper around one of the most precious knives ever made.
On 9/11, Matt was pulled away from the day-to-day frivolity of unboxing new knives. The Mnandi he had just bought was the last thing on his mind. When life started to settle back down, he didn’t have the heart to break the seal. The knife is beautiful, I’m sure. But it’s better this way: an undisturbed fragment of the world as it existed before, charged by the significance of what came after. We will never forget.