The Monkey Barrel

Archive for September, 2006

I know I shouldn’t, but I’m compelled. She was grace in the midst of her grief. I saw myself in her eyes if ever I had the horrible misfortune to be in her shoes. Bereft of the love of her life and facing motherhood alone. My soul aches for her, for the fear that hides in every wife and mother’s heart that we will share her fate. I cannot imagine speaking so soon. I’ve heard reporters say that she is young and in time will love again. You do not find such a connection twice in this life. I would never try.

It is a chilly morning. The air is bright and the sun is golden. Nearly five years since New York was brought to her knees. Remembrances splash the news and papers and here, on this screen the memories crash over me. I remember waking that morning to the news of the first plane hitting. I was feeding John who was then about 19 months old. I though it was some horrible accident until, right before my eyes, a second plane came barreling through. I was rocked. Stunned cannot even begin to describe the feeling that spread through my gut while holding my first born. Within minutes the jets from oceana were screaming overhead. Our house shook so hard I could barely feel the fear trembles coursing through me. I grabbed the phone and called Fred begging him to come home. There wasn’t a channel that wasn’t covering every angle they could possibley get. America was bathed in the horror. We saw people jumping from the windows and pedestrians running for their lives. Sirens screamed in our brains.
The phone rang off the hook. Did you see, are you watching, can you believe? I did, I was, and I could not. And there, in our living room, in silent devastation, I watched the buildings crumble. Tears flowed down. Anger, sorrow, agony, anguish, mingling together. Who could have done this to us? How could anyone harbor such a hatred? Would we ever be safe again? The questions pummeled my heart. Wondering what kind of world I had brought my baby boy into. The hours and days afterward were a blur. The stories and posters pouring in of people looking for their loved ones and knowing in my soul that too few would be found. The nation existed in a haze. We clung to each other, our phones, our t.v.’s. Watching and listening and wanting. Wanting answers, wanting it to be a dream, wanting what we knew we may never find.
Five years later. We came through it. I cannot say we survived because so many did not. And now my son has questions I cannot begin to know how to answer. It all comes back so fresh. I have two boy now. I wonder what this world I have brought them into will hold for them. For all the families who suffered, who were directly devastated, I cling to them. Trying to infuse their minds and bodies so full of love and joy that never a moment in their little hearts will go by that they did not know completely and fully what they mean me. I cherish them. For the ones who are gone. For those who can no longer do the same for their own.