Wow, what a day, right? Today is a day that dregs up emotions in myself no other day can. I lost my dad when I was 13. His birthday and the anniversary of his death do not affect me in the same way as September 11. Of course, Fox News and every other channel on television are not playing twenty-four hour coverage of those days. I cannot say I understand people who are not affected by this day. This is a day when my heart is heavy.
This morning, when I took my girls to school, I cranked up the car and flipped on the radio. Our favorite morning radio show hostess, Amy Pollard (Great American Road Trip) said one word, "Well", and the tone in her voice suddenly brought my sleepy mind to alertness. I happened to look down and realized I was wearing my beat-up old Tasmanian Devil t-shirt I permanently borrowed from my girlfriend Brooke. I was wearing this favorite old t-shirt eight years ago, when I held my then one-year-old daughter on my left hip, with my cell phone in my right hand. I was breathing very quickly, and as I sank to my knees, I asked my now ex-husband what was going on. He told me World War III had started, to pack a bag, take the baby and go to my mother's house.
I am such a sap. I know I will be emotional all day. You know, people lose parents and grandparents and even children. We see pictures of people who were shot, and images of war and all kinds of horrible things that slowly build a wall of cynicism in our hearts. After a while, horrific things stop being quite so horrific. It is then that we are able to close ourselves off to the pain and misery of September 11, 2001. I wish I could make some people feel as deeply as I do when I think to myself, "That person is dead. They are not alive. They cannot hug that little girl. They cannot call their mother on the phone. They don't breathe, or laugh, or cry." Some of those people suffered unimaginable, un-Godly agony as they lay in those buildings just waiting to die, while others screamed and moaned around them, and black smoke and gases filled their mouths and lungs and burned their eyes. Some people lay there for days, able to hear the voices of their would-be rescuers, who simply could not move rubble out of the way to get to the hopeless, doomed victims without causing even more catastrophe.
Can you imagine lying beneath a pile of rubble and skyscraper, the lower half of your body crushed beyond repair, which you already know, not able to have water, with drywall and dirt and smoke and soot and any manner of disgusting debris in your eyes and nose and mouth? All the while, you can hear the voices of firefighters and people who want help you. Yet, you know, deep in your heart, you will never again see the sky, or your family or anyone else you love. Maybe a stranger's hand reaches through a crevice and someone tells you, "I will not leave you." And it is the hand of the last person you will ever touch or see or talk to. You tell them to tell your family how much you love them. You thank them for their help. You allow darkness to take over. This is how I imagine the last moments of some of the poor people who were crushed in the towers, or at the Pentagon.
Someone was on the phone with their broker. Someone was glancing at a picture of his granddaughter as he took a sip of his soda and went on to the next line of his report. A woman was grabbing a paper towel to dry her hands in the ladies' room. A couple of people were pouring cups of coffee and talking about whether or not Michael Jordan would be retiring from the NBA. For others I imagine just enough time to be confused and then realize death was immediately imminent as they were swallowed by a ball of fire. Some of them were swallowed by a monster of flame and smoke that completely obliterated their physical bodies before they knew anything. They may have had time to register heat on the side of their head and face before they ceased to exist.
I realize the vivid images I have painted seem awful. And, indeed they are. I want people to think awful. I want people to remember how awful it was. I don't want people to forget it happened once and could happened again. I don't want people to abuse the truth or try to disguise the magnitude of what happened that day, or how it changed our country, our world, our lives. Think of the pile of bodies there would have been if all those people had just been killed and piled up. Thousands of human lives. Thousands of innocent people who kissed wives, and touched a child's curl at her temple once more before leaving her at daycare. Most of the interviews I have seen have been with sisters of pilots and wives of passengers. One group I have never heard much from is the parents and families of the children at the daycare which was in one of the World Trade Center towers. To have lost a grown family member in the tragedy is bad enough. To imagine those sweet, chubby, rosy-cheeked, silken-haired babies dying in the same manner as all those office workers is both agonizingly heartbreaking and also enough to induce a feeling of hot rage.
I guess they are who I think of the most, the children. For myself, when I see politicians and government workers who want to show pictures of CIA operatives to confirmed, known Al-Queida members I am disgusted. I wish they would hold up a picture of one of those babies' bodies, if they were able to find any, and say, "Now, did this guy hold you under water for a few seconds longer than what made you comfortable after your friends did this to this innocent baby?" I want someone to shove a picture of any body from those horrific events in the face of that woman I keep seeing on Fox News who won't answer questions about why she is supporting and working for an investigation about "torture" of known terrorists, otherwise known as a "swirly" in American high schools.
I don't understand people who work against the welfare of this country. I don't understand what they are able to tell themselves at night when they lay their heads on their 100% Egyptian cotton 300-thread-count pillowcases after they have been telling the public they are doing positive things for the country. Somehow informing known terrorists we are quick to jump to their defense at the certain demise of loyal American patriots who performed an unimaginably distasteful duty to serve their country and keep it safe just doesn't strike me as doing positive work for our country.
September 11, 2001 was the November 8, 1963 of my generation. It was the day you remember what you were wearing, what you were doing, who you were with. I remember arriving at work that afternoon, looking up and seeing three little pieces of curling ribbon tied to my boss's car antenna; red, white and blue. I can see it clear as day. Those three little strings gave me hope, silly enough. Realizing that old curmudgeon who usually didn't show much emotion or awareness, really, was patriotic, and cared about his country, made my heart fraught with just that little bit less dread of the unknown future.
September 11 does not need to fade into American history in the way Pearl Harbor has. It doesn't need to turn into sanctimonious ceremonies with flower wreaths and emotional speeches and florid words of dramatic ardor. This day should forever be a reminder of what we have, how hard others worked to get it, and how we are going to have to continue to work hard to keep it. Whatever people cite as their reason for wishing to destroy someone else, it really comes down to want. The destroyed either has what the destroyer wants, took what the destroyer wants back, or wants what the destroyer has. With every fiber of my being I believe as long as the majority of Americans are Christian people and remember this country was founded for purpose of religious freedom, God will protect our country.
Where were you at the exact second you realized our country was under attack. What was your reaction? Do you think we are more safe eight years later? What is your opinion of the "9/11 Truthers" who feel President George W. Bush machinated the 9/11 attacks to instigate a conflict?
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