The morning began with a clear sky and wonderful dreams to be explored. it was business as usual in NYC on Sept 11, 2001. No one knew that in the span for a few hours their world would change for the tragic. In the span of a breath, the daily stillness splintered into dust, sirens, and disbelief.
I remember exactly where I was when the first plane hit, and then the second on the World Trade Center. I was seeing patients in the clinic as a second year resident. I came out of the room with a patient and saw the distracted office staff watching the TV screen as the first plane hit. It did not register in my head at the time, I started doing my note then the second tragedy got my attention.
Each of us remember exactly where we were and who we were when this happened.
When history is made, it is not in silence, it is sudden. A moment frozen in time and our nervous system can either fight or flee. But when a sentinel event occurs we freeze. It is important to acknowledge that whether it was a change in health, relationship, financial status, loss of a loved one. Milestones in our lives that alter our trajectories are key to remember and honor the sacredness of the fork in the road.
To speak of September 11 is to speak of the profound weight of nearly three thousand lives, each one an unfinished song. A quarter of a century may have passed but these souls cannot be forgotten. It was a big loss of life for emergency personnel in one “call to save the day”. 441 first responders of police, firefighters, paramedics, port authority police all answered their alarm bells to help others. Their services ended in the line of duty.
All who perished were fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, friends to someone else.
Grief from that day lingers in the unseen spaces of the hearts of those who loss someone and in the hearts of the nation who lost its blood.
Dinner table chairs will forever be empty as we recall the ashes of dark snow coating the city streets and the faces of all present. Like the city of Pompeii’s end, NYC will never be the same. A part of it died with its people under a veil of tears. It is wise to remind ourselves of the human tenderness that was born that day as each person still left to hold this burden of loss, came to the aide of another. This was the pulse of the human spirit to heal.
So in our memories allow the gift of the sacred watch of what happened, with the promise that we shall not allow it to occur again. The fabric of time is stitched but the hurt will always be there in our unbroken collective memories.
Saying a prayer and sending love to all concerned is not just symbolic, but also a path to our own healing as we return back to love in a life filled with beauty and horror, where each one’s opposite defines the other with depth of meaning. Gratitude for the life that we have in this moment, for loss can occur at any time, and what we do in the in between that gives us meaning.
Blessings of love and light to everyone past and present.
……………..
I love you
