twenty years gone.

 

We say grief shared is grief relived.  Maybe it is grief released, I do not know.   As we look back on this morning, twenty years ago, we still mourn the loss.  We mourn the loss of life and the loss of innocence. Each generation has an event that defines that loss of innocence.  For my parents’ generation, it was Pearl Harbor, for mine, it was the assassination of JFK.  For my daughter, it is 9/11.  These acts of terrible violence shake us and shape us as we move forward.

Each of us remembers where we were and what we were doing when the planes hit the towers.  

I woke up to it. Kate was watching the news and told me, I thought she must be watching a movie, it was six a.m.  I was groggy.  I took my daughter to school. I will never forget the police officer on the corner of Fletcher and Riverside, asking me if I had heard and telling me to stay safe from the window of her cruiser. I was closing and moving Sherman Oaks Library, when I got a call from my then-husband telling me that they were closing the transportation corridors. There would be no way for my daughter to get home from downtown LA. My crew chief told me "go get the baby" (even though she was 14) The school at first refused, but I insisted and took her back to the job- probably illegal but this was an emergency. I sent my crew home and went to the second location for the day, when the boss told me just to go home.  We followed the news reports for days in shock.  I remember getting messages in a chat room from friends on the East Coast, asking us to call their family to tell them they were ok.  Someone did. and it bonded us further- we were all a group of fans of a band and were pretty friendly to begin with.  Yesterday, my daughter called me to tell me that my grandson was studying this in his history book. We are witnesses to history.

Today, let us each take a moment to honor our dead, murdered for no reason but perceived political gain.  Let us remember the courage of the Crew and passengers on Flight 93.  The sacrifice of the New York City Fire Department and the NYPD.  

Remember too, that feeling of compassion that you felt for your fellow human; how you looked after your neighbor, how you asked random people if they were alright.  It takes a crisis to bring our humanity to the surface, We soon forget it and "roll back to original programming"   but today, try to remember that feeling.