Day of Tears

 I should have thought to wear waterproof mascara today, as I have been brought to tears several times today by the memory of that terrible day, Sept. 11, 2001.  

I still remember that morning.  We got up and Dennis jumped in the shower.  I turned on the TV.  The news was on.  I glanced up at the TV and saw two tall buildings with smoke billowing up from them, the commentator was saying something about a possible terrorist attack.  I wondered where it was, perhaps Israel, or some other war-torn country.  It never occurred to me that it could have been in America.  I kept waiting for the news to say what country had just been attacked.  They said something about trying to get a response from the president.  The president of what country? - I asked.  Then they said the president was in Florida, and I thought how strange it was that that country's president was in America.  I am so incredibly slow sometimes.  Suddenly, devastatingly, it all clicked.  America.  America.  Someone had attacked America!  Dennis came out of the shower and saw me frozen in the middle of the room watching.  Watching and crying, as I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening.  Could such a thing have really happened?  Couldn't their be some other explanations for what was happening.  One plane - a freak accident.  But two?  To use our own people, innocent people, as weapons against other innocent people, people who had just kissed their families good-bye and went to work.  Just people.  My mind couldn't grasp such evil.  Before that moment, I couldn't have believed that such evil existed.  That morning I saw the face of evil, rising in the smoke, reflected in the terrified, ash covered faces of people running through the streets of New York, running for their lives.  Who could hate us SO much?  Why?  WHY?

I sat there in my room and watched all day, and for days after.  So many images, images that I still can picture today, each new image ripping my understanding of the state of the world further into shreds. Images of papers streaming down like obscene parade confetti, and the horrifying image of people...jumping.  What horror did they face that jumping 100 stories to their certain death was preferable?  I remember watching the first tower fall, collapsing on itself. I could hardy comprehend what it meant.  People inside.  How many?  Then the unthinkable, the other tower fell, dropping out of the skyline.  Who could survive that?  No one, apparently, we learned as we waited, and waited, then stopped waiting , stopped hoping for survivors.  I remember the terrifying reports of another airplane hit at the same time - the Pentagon - edifice of our Nations strength and security -  a punch in the face of America.  The NERVE!  And then speculation.  What next?  The White House, the Capitol, or the west coast?  Disneyland?  LA?  So many possible targets.  And more reports of another plane crash, but this time in a field in Pennsylvania?  Something went wrong?  Then realization.  Something went right!  Heroes were born... and died..  at the same moment!  Some of the strongest images weren't images at all, but sounds.  Phone calls made to wives, husbands, children.  Last messages.  Voices of dead men walking.  "I'm fine."  "I'm scared." "I love you."  So many "I love you"s that really said "Good-by."  Or then eerie sound of empty skies.  No planes flew.  Not for days.  No white streaks in the sky.  Nothing.  

One image hurts more than any other.  Even seven years later it stings my brain.  It was the wall.  Remember that wall?  My eyes swell with tears right now as I think of it.  It was the wall near ground zero where people placed pictures of their missing loved ones, desperate to find them, hadn't heard from them.  Pictures of ordinary people, smiling, doing ordinary things, photos with friends, and pets.  All ages.  All races.  Just people.  Titles: "missing", "loving mother", "come home" with descriptions, and phone numbers.  Please call!  And as the days passed, there were more and more faces, names, stories, lives on that wall, not fewer.  Heart wrenching! I still remember how that wall just filled me with despair - their despair, the despair of those who hung those pictures there.  I remember how I cried.  It was the kind of crying that hurts your sides, aches with each breath, and burns your throat and eyes.  

I didn't cry like that today.  Thankfully.  Today's were the short, quaking in the chest, eyes fill with tears, try to control my breath type cries.  Maybe that is bad.  They say time heals all wounds.  Perhaps it is true.  I hope that it isn't.  I fear the day this wound heals over, and people forget, and get lax.  I'm afraid it had already started to scab over.  

Remember the other images.  The FLAGS!  Flags everywhere.  The real America rose from the ashes.  United.  Strong.  Unashamed of calling upon their God.  Remember that?  But I didn't see too many flags today.  I flew the GIANT one.  My kids and I all wore red, white and blue.  Not too many others did.  

Today I watched the memorials, and cried.  On Saturday there was a documentary about the twin towers on the Discovery Channel.  I made my kids watch.  They were amazed, they had so many questions.  I told them.  They saw me cry.  It was good for them.  My children were too young to remember much about Sept 11.  The twins were only 2.  My oldest was only 5. They are old enough to understand now.  I want my children to know that evil exists, secret combinations, just like we read about in the ancient days.  They need to see what evil is.  What evil does.  Why we fight.  They need to also see how heroes are made from ordinary people.  Americans are good, and strong.  Americans help each other.  There could be heroes everywhere.  They could be heroes.  They must be heroes if a day like this comes to them.  My boys need to see that too.

They showed more images today.  Not many.  There were so many that day.  But the ones that they showed seemed so fresh.  Raw.  And the sounds... Oh!  

They need to show more images.  And show them, and show them, and show them.  We need to cry more, and remember more.  And then we need to stand up and be that America again!