Beautiful September Morning - 9/11/20

 It was such a beautiful September morning today, with that hint of fall in the air.

Reminded me so much of that morning nineteen years ago, equally sunny and beautiful.

We all probably remember where we were that morning.

I was living in temporary housing, just weeks into our move back to Massachusetts. The younger boys were 2 and 4 and just dropped off at their first day of daycare, and I was off to a library interview.

Arriving at the interview, I was brought into a small room and then surprisingly no one came in, for over ten minutes. When the director finally came in, she was distraught and said she couldn't do the interview. 

Wandering slightly bewildered out to my car, I saw people in the parking lot listening to the radio in their cars, with this look on their faces that I have rarely seen. It looked like they had seen horror, and as I went into to my car and turned my radio on, that sense of seeing and hearing horror just kept unfolding.

I distinctly remember that before and that after. Of not quite believing what you were hearing and then seeing on the images on the television. Not knowing what it meant, or if we would be at war.

Could not stop thinking about that morning today, all the lives lost. Then I looked out the window as I driving and and saw people wearing masks. It still jars me, maybe because I have spent so much time at home these last six month, seeing and remembering that we are fighting a different enemy today.

Yet, despite the horror of what happened on that September morning, nineteen years ago, while it changed us, it did not defeat us or define us. I chose to believe that will be the case this year.

We will remember the lives lost, we will rise above the politics that divide us, and we will come out the other side, maybe battered but somehow better. We owe it, to all those who put their lives on the line, whether entering burning buildings on 9/11 or caring for the sick and fallen in this pandemic. To be better to each other and for our nation, is the best way to honor them.