story1147.xml

story1147.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

I wrote this on Sept 12 and sent it to a group of online friends. Reading it again now, my eyes fill with tears like it was all yesterday. My heart breaks for those so profoundly impacted by the events of September 11, 2001.
________________________________________

I just need to share this with everyone. I am having
so much trouble handling all of this. Just when I
think I have it together, I see or hear a story so
personal, so painful, that it is all I can do keep
from breaking down again.

I was a Marine. I am a strong man fully capable of
controlling my emotions. But this devastation is so
pervasive, so incidious, so horrid that I feel like my
heart cannot possibly contain it all.

Yesterday, in an instant, someone's entire world was
destroyed. A young man, perhaps, already missing his
wife or partner, wishing the flight that took them
away would hurry home. Instead, in a moment of
horror, he watched his most significant other vanish
in a ball of flame and debris and hate. In a flash,
more than a plane disappeared. Gone was the promise
to "see you soon." Gone were a million secrets shared
between them... the private joke about the loud
waiter... the song they danced to last weekend at that
corner bar... the color they planned to paint the
kitchen.

Across town, a Mom sat stunned. Below her, her
children played, oblivious to the thief that had
slipped in and stolen their happiness. They are too
young to understand, you see. But in the years to
come, they will fully come to appreciate the horror of
this day. The damage to their lives will be done not
in a flash, but in the sadness of days to come. "Your
Dad would have been so proud of you," Mom will say at
every important event. And the tears will flow again,
a wound as raw and jagged as the moment it was
inflicted.

These are just some of the thoughts that are tearing
me to pieces right now. I feel so much pain, like the
very fabric of our souls have begun to unravel.

I know we will recover. I know we will find peace
again, and happiness. Right now, though, those things
seem like some impossible dream.

Thanks for letting me ramble -
John