5 years, 10, or even 15 years... Yes. But 11?
Yet... this Anniversary. The Anniversary of Sept 11th, 2001... there is no protocol for this one.
The tears that spring unbidden whenever I sit and try to find the words to recapture the horror, the loss, the pride, the determination....
It's too big.
Too big to define the details. Because it was the details of that day that does a person in, takes the breath away and arrests the soul.
The individual stories of loss and heroism, of love and bravery... of being human.... that breaks us open.
It's those tales, both tender and gruesome, that drive us to our knees and cause us to remain there in quiet contemplation.
It's the LOVE that reduces us to tears.
We were laid bare that day. Our trust was shattered and our humanity exposed. We encountered an enemy we didn't know we had. The intensity of hate that spewed from this enemy... it caught us unawares. And our lives would never be the same. Did we realize that?
Did we see the paradigm shift that was to come in the world we thought we knew?
My kids are too young to remember. Even while watching the documentaries, there is something lost.
It's the personal association... "the remembering where you were when you heard".... "the knowing".... "the fearing"
Then Action Man says it. Wait...was that the day you ran out to the backyard and screamed at us to come inside? You were so scared Mom.
Yes, the F-18's were patrolling so so close... and I thought it was an airliner bearing down. So silly now... to think that Dallas would be a target. But that day? Anything could happen.
Because the unimaginable already had.
Thousands of lives were lost that day. Hundreds of thousands more were changed forever.
May our tears and prayers never run dry.
(Photo credits)
