Love When the Sky is Falling

Ten years have past since that bright Tuesday that changed our lives.  Still, when I look back,  I tremble with the fear and anger I felt when The Towers fell.  I know enough to know that the primary emotion is fear, and then anger follows.  I know that fear is a killer as well as its close buddy anger.  I know also there is no love in fear and anger.  I know that I must always pray for my enemies for they are really my brothers, and if I think about it, they are me.  We are all made of the same stuff, and so are bound together.  Those who drove those airplanes in those buildings were most likely not thinking that we were all  the same.  I suspect they were thinking we were those guys.  This day's memory brings me to that core belief that we are the same, and that we are made to love each other and shakes it like nothing else ever has.  I remember my husband and I afterwards going to the icon corner and saying our prayers.  We made an effort to included prayers for love of enemies because I knew I did not want to.  I struggle with the old man when this day comes.  I know we are all in this together and that we are to love those who even seek to kill us.  Such a tall order for me on a day like this.  I also think of those who loved others and willingly gave their lives so that others might live.  So on a day that has such hatred, fear and anger, I remember also a day filled with love, kindness and bravery to such a degree, I can never get my head around some of it.  May I be more and more like the first responders and go in and love especially when the sky is falling.

One Bright and Sunny Tuesday

So much sadness on this day.  I am so grateful that the pain has lessen, but the memory of that sunny day in September where everything went so wrong lives with me. When I was a teenager our family went to NYC and the first place we went was the World Trade Center.   I lived in NY and fell in love on the towers.  Many nights my beloved and I would go to The Towers just to look out or look down on the solarium or watch boats come in and check out the big clock in NJ. We never saw the solarium until after the attacks.  So much joy I had there.  Sometimes the joy is part of the pain.  Everything changed that day and I have not liked it at all.  I learned what it felt to have my backyard bombed.  My nation, which used to be able to hold civilized conversations with each other, no longer is able to do so. 

I am haunted by the sound of all the proximity alarms going off and then going silent.  I am haunted by the desire to give blood if needed, and it was not.  I am haunted by the images of emergency medical workers assembling to care for thousands and no one showed up. I am haunted by thee selfless love of those who rushed in to save those in need, and perished. I am haunted by the flight in Pennsylvania whose passengers realized what was happening, and ran the plane into the ground rather than take others with them into death. I am haunted by that day.

I struggle to keep my reason when I remember this day.  I have held fast to my convictions that we are all humans and are created to love and be loved. We are not created to destroy.  As my spiritual father always said, "We forge on."  So I must move on. In grief, for this really is what I feel, the process is slow, and sometimes goes on and on and on.  I move forward in love.