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It was a morning none of us could imagine ever happening. But, it did.
I was waiting to take my teenagers to school, and we didn't watch television in the morning. The phone rang. It was my son's friend, Jordan, who said in a strained voice, 'Have you seen what's happening in New York on tv?' He was a latch key kid, and I worried about him being alone. 'No, what's up?' 'Just turn it on and call me back'. I did.
Every station was filled with the images of the planes, the crashes, flames and smoke. Of white dust encrusted figures running away from the devastation and yellow coated fire fighters running toward it. Of filthy people in business suits crying into bloodied hands. Of loved ones being restrained by others.
I went to my kids and shared the news, then led them into the family room to see the images, those that would come to define America's interaction with the rest of the world during their lives. I knew that life as we had known it was over; changed by the raging extremism of others. As it so often is. I looked at their young, unlined faces frozen in horrified fascination and trepidation and felt deep sorrow for them. It was a loss of innocence, exposure to a toxin so profound as to taint their souls forever.
I hated the men behind this evisceration of the U.S. The ones who could think of something so horrendous. The ones who plotted, planned, and executed such cruel mayhem with impunity. I hated anyone who would forever change my children's lives in such a manner. And make me party to that change, as the one who led them to the moment of knowing.
I knew that my priorities for the coming days and weeks and months had instantly changed, constricted to a small circle in that moment. One including my husband and I, my children and whatever friends needed us, and my closest community. I felt palpably the duty of a mother, friend, a sister and a matriarch. I gathered my big kids into a tight hug circle, and we stood silently, stiffly, as if at attention and ready to defend against an incoming blow.
We went to our lives later, walking carefully, talking quietly, thinking before speaking or acting. As if we were trying not to disturb someone in the next room. In fact, we were uncomfortable in our own lives, our own clothes. We were here, safe and whole, and the world just shifted. Shouldn't there be some outward change, some open wound to tend, some deep feeling of hunger or fear? Should we have to give up something, run away from something, hide in the dark from something? Life was just so normal as the days unfolded, except for what we saw and read through the media and the talk.
We were torn, wanting to have some thing to tend to, some manifestation of our pain, some proof of our victimization, but there was none. Only the vague uneasiness, like fear, like pain, like grief, like hatred, but not quite. The most were were able to do is to cling tightly to one another, to talk, to tell one another 'I love you'.
We craved a wake, a ceremony, an official opportunity to show the world our pain, our shared loss, our bewildering muddle of emotion. But, we were way out west, far from the action and the drama of the real story. We didn't feel eligible to say 'I hurt'. That was for the victims, the families, the bloodied business people. Our hands and clothing were clean and whole. All of our bleeding was on the inside.
