Remember
Nothing happened to me personally, this day eight years ago. I lost no lovers, no family in the fire of falling buildings. No airplane carried my love to death, my business was not covered in the mingled dust of bodies and brick. I was not present to see the sun blocked out by the flutter storm of millions of sheets of papers. My pictures were not trampled beneath the boots of heroes and victims.
My children did not wonder where I was, nor I they. There are no saved messages from a voice I will never hear again. I am not mourning a specific pair of eyes that will never be gazed into. Not missing the grasp of a particular hand. But, that day..that day that we seem so easily to forget, changed me.
I lay safe in the late morning of a tuesday, so many miles away from burning, crashing planes and screams of people. Of children. Of men and women and hate and fear. Of whispered, shouted love. Of goodbye. Of Oh, God. Of silent tears brought by the very reality of choosing the least painful way to die. I lay in tears, of losing those I’d never met. Something fundamental quivered and shook loose.
There was a subtle, yet powerful shift in my polarity. For the first time, something that occurred out side of me began to shimmer around the edges. The world was something wholly different than I thought it was. It remains as such.
Regardless of the abuse of neglect from my father and a heinous sexual assault, somewhere in the innocence of my complacency, I still believed that the world was safe. I never truly believed that someone wanted me dead. In my 26 and 1/2 years of life, to that point, the naivete of my world view kept me in a little bubble. I thought, as always, that the goodness at the core of my heart; the one that truly wished harm to no one. I thought that core was universal.
In that day, that moment, when I laid wrapped up in Clay’s arms, tears streaming down my face..I came to know the truth of this place. That religion and politics and a refusal seek divinity, result in the shocking downpour of violence. Not against a government. not against an ideology. But against people.
3000 people killed for living. The death of innocence, yes. Also, the death of complacency. The death of souls. A birth of a new and weighty understanding. One that I will never forget. Not now, not ever.
May each of them rest, gorgeous and whole. I remember.
September 11th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
“The world was something wholly different than I thought it was. It remains as such.”
That is it exactly. There is my unknowing faith in the goodness of people and the world before 9/11, and there is knowing that there are people who wish me and us dead just because we are alive after.
There are so many things that I think about now that I never, ever thought before 9/11. They pop into my head unbidden. They always will.
September 11th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
you’ve captured this beautifully. it brought it home is such a way i hadn’t known before.
September 11th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I remember feeling so aware, for the first time, of how fragile life can be. To see death on display. And for it not to be fiction . . .
September 11th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
You may not have lost a lover or friend, you may not have watched the buildings across the street fall not smelled the terror and fear on the street below, but you lost something equally important that day, in a way many of us can relate to. Life isn’t the same, the world isn’t the same, and from there we can only lay down in the rubble or push ourselves onward. Thank you for your remembrance…
September 12th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Its amazing how the world unite remembering this day together….
September 12th, 2009 at 6:33 am
I am always reminded one way or another about how precious this life is.
And, on this day in particular, I am praying for thousands that I do not know………..
September 12th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Thank you for this post.
September 12th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Yes, we remember. Let us never forget. Beautiful writing.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I remember. Always.
September 12th, 2009 at 10:31 am
What saddens me the most is that such an act of unforgivable aggression has achieved nothing other than to birth further acts of unforgivable aggression. At every turn the human race lets itself down. We have such capacity to become something greater, but our arrogance and smallness blinker us.
Yes, we will always remember. But history shows us that humans never learn.
September 12th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
This is the most beautiful thing you’ve written (that I’ve had the pleasure to read).
I remember, too.
September 12th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Beautiful post, Christine.
September 12th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Great post. It doesn’t matter if you lost someone close to you or not. That mass murder took something away from all of us in many different ways. Freedom being one of them. Why do I get searched when I go to a ball game ?? WTF …a lot has changed because of that day. I did a post of my own about a walk around Ground Zero that I did the other day, check it out if you like. Thanks for remembering.
September 13th, 2009 at 4:26 am
i remember, too. always.
xoxo
September 13th, 2009 at 8:02 am
It always strikes me that neither of my children ever lived in the world of Before. This After is the only world they’ll ever know.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
It sure doesn’t seem like eight years has passed. Great post.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
My God. Beautiful. Thank you.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Wonderful post. I remember too, being afraid and my husband gone with the military for the first time shortly after.
Thank you for writing this
Hugs,
Anita
September 15th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Gorgeous.
September 16th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Perfect.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Beautifully said, as always.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:30 am
This weblog is being featured on Five Star Friday –
http://www.fivestarfriday.com/2009/09/five-star-fridays-edition-71.html
September 18th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Well put, Flutter.
And so not one of us, here or there or anywhere around the world should ever be filled with a complacency. It can touch any of us, any day, and if it doesn’t we should be thank ful. There are too many, even now, who don’t have that luxury.
September 19th, 2009 at 5:01 am
me too. remembering on that date, but reminded on any given day.
September 19th, 2009 at 6:27 am
That was such an accurate description of how it was for those of us who knew nobody there, but felt it just the same. And so beautifully written. Thanks for reminding us.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:02 am
Gorgeous tribute. I also think of that as the day when the US joined the rest of the world and started to get a taste of the horrors people in other countries have lived with for time immemorial.