It’s been eight years today, and I still remember everything. There’s nothing I can say to change what happened, and so I offer up a column I wrote for the Times Leader on the one-year anniversary of 9/11 to pay homage to those who perished, to those who survived, and to the families and friends of the victims. Your loss is my loss. Your pain is my pain. Your hope is my hope.
I told my editor I wanted to write my own reflections about the one-year anniversary of 9/11, but since making that commitment I have been struggling to find my voice. To a writer, words are flesh and bone. They are a living, breathing entity born of muscle, fiber and sinew that join together to create something singular and enriching. When words fail a writer, as they fail me now, the silence is deafening.
The truth is I don’t know what to say; don’t know what to feel; can’t possibly understand the depths of sorrow and pain so many have been forced to scale since terrorists crashed American planes into American buildings and took the lives of more than 3,000. They were America’s fathers, its sons, its daughters, its mothers. Collectively, I feel the grief of a nation, but having been spared the agony of losing a loved one in the World Trade center, or in the Pentagon, or in the hallowed ground near a small Pennsylvania town, I cannot begin to feel the true measure of sorrow that continues to engulf so many.
And so, I ask myself what is it I can possibly offer? What words of comfort or reflection can I possibly add that would be anything but inconsequential? I keep coming back to a poem I wrote many years ago about a mother dealing with the death of her young child. It is in this poem that the seeds of grief are sown, and with it the all-consuming guilt that comes from having been the one to survive:
She stands still, palms pressed against the glass door
feels the warmth against the cold of her hands
Outside the wind whips particles of sand
and waves break in silence along the shore.
The house no longer breathes, she can’t restore
that slender thread, that brittle cord
and the child whose very being did command
laughter and light in a place she now mourns.
Mixing sand and surf, a muffled sound
Submerged, tiny fingers grasping at air
One faithless, fateful moment when he drowned
and she along with him, swallowed in grief
spiraling downward, sanity swept beneath
and the waves break screaming, leaving her bare.
How do we reclaim the exquisite joy of living in the wake of so much death and destruction? The truth is I feel guilty that I have been able to move on from that day while others remain frozen in time; that I was spared what others have been forced to endure. I resist the chance to fully heal, as if by letting go of the grief I am letting go of the ones that were lost. The truth is I worry that I will forget – not the carnage; not the names or the faces of those who died and are forever burned into my soul, but the vows that I made to myself in the moments, hours and days following 9/11 to live each moment fully and with passion. I worry that I will allow time to soften the memory, to blur the edges of my commitment to a life more loving and humane; that I will fail to weather the difficult moments with grace and benevolence; that I will lose sight of what truly matters as the world slowly, inescapably returns to “normal.”
A year has passed. September has gone and come back around again, and we are face-to-face with what has never left us that faithless, fateful moment. That we have come so far in the wake of such devastation is a testament to our allegiance, our strength, our resilience. Bloodied, but not broken; humbled but not bowed, America continues to crawl her way out of the ash and debris. This is the knowledge that steels me; that fortifies my feet of clay; that picks me up when I stumble and lose sight of the promise I made to myself as I watched the towers burning. This is the lesson I offer up in honor of those who have fallen. I offer this in gratitude. I offer this in love.
About the Author
My name is Evelyn. As Founder & CEO of Evelyn Kalinosky LLC, my coaching practice specializes in working with high-level women executives who want to achieve a more sacred kind of success. The goal is a search for significance, a journey to uncover the wealth of the self, a rite of passage to their highest purpose, and to a life that is as unique as their fingerprint.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Evelyn,
Sometimes words cannot express what the heart feels. I am feeling that now reading your story.
Thank you for reminding us how precious life really is.
Let us celebrate all we have and all we are as we remember all we lost on that fateful day.
Heidi Richards Mooney, Publisher
WE Magazine for Women
Your words paint a poignant picture of sorrow and hope. Thank you for helping us to remember that day and how it has forever changed the lives of so many – including each of us, whether we know it or not.
Thank you, Heidi, for taking the time to read this – it’s not the usual subject matter for my blog, but I so wanted to give voice to the day, and to not let the memory languish in some hazy, vague way that often happens when we try to forget the past. I agree – life is precious, and we need to embrace every moment – both the rapture and the sorrow.
Debra:
Sorrow and hope are sometimes intrinsically linked, and what changes one, changes the other. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for remembering.
This is my first visit to your blog, very beautiful post. We lived close enough to feel this in a deep way, an hour away, but not as deeply as those we know who were there, and were personally impacted due to the affect it had on my husband’s job. Things have never been quite the same since. I spend the day reflecting on all that has happened in honor of those who were lost, tend to do that with all special days of the year, then it is time to get on with living, and appreciating each day. ~claudia
That horrible day changed all of our lives, and we felt insecure, yet strong, as a nation. Though we will never forget those who lost their lives that day, nor the loved ones they left behind, I fear we have become complacent again.
For someone who lost their words, you certainly wrote some moving and profound ones here. :0)
What a lovely tribute to those who lost their lives on 9/11 eight years ago. Your words are so moving and heartfelt and you wrote the pain that many of us felt. Thank you for helping us to deal with this national day of remembrance.
I still think of 9/11 as a surreal moment. I was working in televisison news at the time and remember how many people I ened up talking to in our area who had lost a loved one or friend. it was heart-wrenching to hear their stories. Your post is a reminder of the many lives touched on that dreaful day.
I doubt if there’s anyone who can’t remember where they were when they heard the shock of that day. And for weeks after most of us were glued to the tube reliving the day and crying our eyes out. This year as I watched part of the memorial service I saw much of that same saddness on the faces of those who lost loved ones. I’m praying for their peace.
I so appreciate all of your thoughtful and soulful comments about what happened that day and what still lingers eight years later. I remember so clearly the feeling of connection and strength I gathered from strangers as we drove across the country – from Sacramento to Pennsylvania – two days after 9/11 because my husband and I were scheduled to fly home the morning of the attacks and along with thousands of people we were stranded in airports. He was in Tuscon and I was in Seattle and we both rented a car and met up in Sacramento so we could drive home together. We didn’t want to be alone, felt that overwhelming need to experience the grief of a nation side-by-side. At every rest stop, gas station or hotel we stopped at along the way, we were met by open arms and a feeling of inclusion. Fresh pots of coffee. Free muffins and fruit. One motel manager even gave up his office to a couple who’d been driving for 15 hours when there weren’t any more rooms left. We weren’t strangers then – we were joined together by a collective commonality of despair, loss, and a strange outpouring of hope.