9/11: Fourteen Years Later

I struggle every year to find the good, the happy, the sanity. It should get easier. It does not.


My sadness is the same now as it was then. I fight all thru the day to not cry. I don’t always win. I’ve tried to hug more. Smile more. Be a better person … more.

Tonight I’m heading out to celebrate life with some very dear friends. As I do though, I can’t help but mourn the loss of America. And not just the loss of the lives on that horrific morning. Not just the friends who will never brighten my day again. Not just the innocence of assumed safety that we will never ever feel again.

But the loss of us as a people, united.

Each year I take this day to reflect on what we’ve lost and to hope for what we can gain. Sadly, with each passing year, it seems we compound the loss of that day with losses we ourselves are causing.


  • Racist billionaire politicians spewing hatred as policy.
  • Religious fanatics refusing to live by the rules of their own Savior.
  • Relentless arrogance that drove the building of a shrine to self-importance.

If there was a shining light after 9/11 it was that we could and would be a stronger nation. We held hands. We gave comfort. We helped one another.

What the hell happened?

The threads that are now being unravelled by nitpicking each other’s values will be the undoing of us. Not some outside force. They only respond to our weakness. We create it. We nurture it.

And I’m sick of it.

And when John Lennon asks me to imagine all the people sharing all the world, I have to say with a broken heart, “I’m Sorry John. I can’t imagine that if my own fucking country keeps ripping itself to pieces!”

For now I’ll just breathe. I’ll hug more. Smile more. Be a better person … more.

Never forget.

Peace.


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