TEN YEARS LATER

9-11-01 TEN YEARS LATER

 

On this day with no reason to why, except for pure hate, amongst the police, and fire rescue teams that perished, 3,051 children lost a parent or two.

 

There are three families that stand out in my mind amongst the millions of stories out there. One, has a family of three children at the time one was three days old, one was four, and the other seven. It was hard enough for this family to loose their father, but their three day old son had been diagnosed with brain cancer. He is now ten, he was sick for the longest time, he is in remission now, but watched carefully since it was a rare form of cancer.

 

The second still gives me goosebumps, a mother had one son who worked in the North Towers, the other at the Pentagon, what are the odds that both buildings would be hit, both sons would die.

 

The last one hits home the hardest, my husband with deep scars, a retired NYPD commanding officer, a survivor with buried and what he thought was dealt with and forgotten memories, visions, just haunt him daily, mostly in sleep. On that day he lost his cousin another policeman, the tales he tells me, how he just couldn't go to another funeral, the day his sgt brings in the list of M.I.A my husbands asks if there is anyone we know, his sgt puts his head down and hands him the list and says you tell me, and there was his cousins name. This year on the tenth anniversary, our boyscout troop in the south is honoring him.

 

The other night on the history channel there were stories from two men from the 88th floor and they gave us their perspective a different inside view from the building, and how they tried and succeed in getting everyone out of that floor which was almost impossible since they were sandwiched in between where the plane hit, but keeping a level, calm head, they found a way to get his coworkers out. These people are indebted and grateful for their lives because of these two hero's.

 

The night before same channel, our stepped down president Bush gave his encounter first hand of when he got the news, and what he saw from air and at ground level, our cushion, our peace of mind, our bubble of not here in the U.S. In N.Y. Can this happen to us was destroyed. Fighter pilots flew above, army tanks, army soldiers holding their weapons ready for what ever should come their way. Where were we? These pictures, the words he spoke were so different to hear now, to see now from a different perspective, gave me chills, gave me tears, and pain to something I will never forget.

 

Ten years later the only closure we have gotten, our newest president who ironically is named Obama, gave us the news this past winter that Osama Bin Ladin was done with, he was finally dead. In the story about the children who lost one or both parents said it best, “ I dont want to sound prejudice but no matter how many million innocent muslims say I am sorry, it will never be enough to replace the tears of my lost father”.

 

When JFK died, people knew where they were, what they were doing, this tradgedy is our JFK in a similar but more destructive way. We will never forget the horror of this day, what we were doing, where we were, the why, all these people were just going to work, leaving their loved ones, their families as if it was any other day, except on this day they never came home. I was working for a medical supply company in NY, I was the mgr that oversaw co workers to get supplies on a daily basis to three different NY based hospitals to cover the operating room. On this day we first stood around the kitchen telivision, stunned, first wondering if this was pilot error, then the second plane hit, then then the third, we were under attack, with no answer to why. BUT our company went into overdrive getting our hosiptals ready for the wounded, but they never came. The ashes that most thought and believed and wanted to believe it was just office papers burnt up, but we all knew that was not papers that were falling from the sky.

 

How did we not see this, how did we not know, who covered up the details of the clues that led up to this horrific day?! God bless those who were lost, God bless those who survived it, and God bless those who had to be there every day.

 

The shame of it still is the unfinished work of the building{s} to be built in the place of the twin towers, a memorial, something to fill the hole.

 

To my husband and so many, many, many others, how do you go forward? How do you, where do you start over? One child from the same story of those who lost a parent or two, is now a young man of seventeen, he has a mix of emotions still, his sister has no memories, she was four then, he feels he can't share with her what he lost, her lose is never knowing her dad, he holds onto the few memories he has of him. There is a camp founded for these children to be with others who understand, and they can just be kids without the world glaring at them and giving them pity, when all they want is their parent back.

 

One can only hope this was and will be the last time we see this much grief in ones life time, in our home state, where ever that state is for those who lost someone{s}.

 

 

9-6-11 traveling mind