remembering

9-11 Tribute in Light Memorial (2011)

This morning, I am remembering the events of 9/11/2001. I woke up well before my alarm today, not able to sleep, with memories and prayers rising from a deeper place in my brain than I normally access. I know that I, like many people, won't forget where they were or how they got through that day and the days that followed September 11th.

This year, as I was asked to travel to a meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 11, I noticed that this date in September was becoming in one sense, "another day," again. Of course for many of us it will never be just another day. I went through the disbelief and an intense worry shared by millions ... as I frantically tried to reach friends and worried about others. It took days to hear from those I was waiting to hear were okay, and the in the days that followed, my shock turned to heartbreak for the family and friends of those confirmed dead, those who would remain "missing," and worry for those who had witnessed the horror of the events. As a nation, we looked to our firefighters as brave and generous souls, and we protected our young children from the images of the news.

Back in 2001, and for the next ten years, I worked on a college campus where we would commemorate 9-11 with ceremony and memorial. Today's college freshmen were only four years old in 2001. Will college faculty and staff continue to hold these ceremonies, for themselves more than for the students? To teach the students of what it meant in the way that schools tried to teach my generation what it meant when JFK was assassinated?

Anyway, these are early morning meandering thoughts. I have to get myself going. Long travel and work day ahead. I will leave you with a few posts from the archives, including a poem called layers of ash I wrote in 2011 in memory of that terrible day 12 years ago.

remembering our grief and our prayer (2012)
peace (2011)
layers of ash (2011)
prayerful remembrance (2010)