| |
Each year on 9/11 I pull out my mental checklist and I count off the items to make sure no terrorist attack can happen today. I breathe a sigh of relief and ignore the growing lump in my throat if:
- it's not the most beautiful day I've ever seen....
- it's not first thing in the morning....
- I'm not driving in to the office, with the radio on, feeling happy
- my George isn't out of the country....
- The Kiddo is where I can easily find or reach him....
- it's not a Tuesday....
- it's not 9/11....
...as though somehow they can only attack if the same conditions are met; if it's 9/11. Beautiful day. Happy girl on her way to work. Kiddo tucked safely at school, with absolutely no reason for a cell phone. As if any of those things are even possible anymore. As though they can't hurt us any other hour of any other day, with any other weapon. It's ridiculous, and yet each year I tick them off and try to find solace in the passing minutes until September 12 is safely underway without incident.
And knowing that this year it's a Tuesday again? For the first time since 2001? I get nervous. It's a dumb OCD thing, one that I fully acknowledge is ridiculous. But when I was about 12, my father took me along on a trip to the hardware store and they had horoscope keychains on display. I fiddled with them, looking for mine, Scorpio, while he did whatever it is that dads do at hardware stores. I turned over the keychain in my hand and read that my lucky numbers were 7 and 13 and that my lucky day was Tuesday. I didn't give it another thought and left with my father. But from that moment forward? Something bad happened every. single. Tuesday. For YEARS. And each time something bad happens still to this day? A small voice in my head still wonders, What day is it? And if it's Tuesday? Ohhhh, it must be the Curse of the Hardware Keychain! Yes, I know. So dumb. But don't think for a minute that it didn't go through my head on 9/11.
So as this year's Tuesday and 9/11 approaches, I feel myself getting nervous. I hate myself for it, because I know how silly it is and that the evil "They" can hurt us whenever they choose to, but still I am helpless against my habits. So I check the weather report, I check the sky, I listen to each plane with half an ear, making sure it doesn't sound too low. I watch the news. A LOT. All the while knowing that none of it has anything to do with a psychotic person's ability to cause us harm. But I have to do it anyway. To comfort myself. To keep the panic at bay. To deal with the gripping sadness that I will never again feel as safe as I used to, and to keep from mourning the fact that I didn't recognize and appreciate that safety when I had it. So I do these things and watch that footage and I shed those tears, hoping to convince myself that it won't happen again. Wrapping my fear in a blanket of denial. Hoping. Hoping.
And while I hope, each year, I have to watch the specials, the coverage, the rehashing. I have to. If someone I loved had died like that, or any way at all, I'd want the world to remember them. Every year...every DAY. They deserve our tears. Because they did nothing more than we do every day: they simply went to WORK. Or they went out for breakfast. Or they got on planes bound for places far away. All of them different and varied and important and inane and for a thousand reasons other than the one that ultimately killed them. For them, each and every one, and for those who ran UP the stairs when everyone else ran down... For those who lost them. The good "They" deserve every tear we shed, every year, every day, every moment it occurs to us, and it should occur to us more often than it does. To more OF us than it ever will.
For you, for them, for those I love, who love me too, and even those who don't anymore. For the strangers I never knew and the countless who miss them every minute of every day: I am one who will never forget. Not ever.
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
************************************************************
|
