September 11, 2016

15 years.  It's been 15 years and I know I will never be who I once was.  Not for the time past and growing older, but for the event that wrenched and tore my spirit apart.  All the mending over time could never put humpty together again. 

There are more days when I feel my physical being limping along, dragging the weight of loss and despair. And too many times when the sight of a clear blue sky with the feel of autumn crisped air makes me weep. This morning as I walked a short distance through the city to my office building, a week before the 15th anniversary, my body shivered instinctively remembering the cooling temperatures as we are headed towards fall.  I looked up at the sky and over, and see what has replaced the World Trade Center.

In the coming decades, this nation’s newest generation won't remember any other building but this one. The old boxy tall World Trade Center North and South will seem quaint, old fashion, simply a group of buildings of the past. The event of what occurred 15 years ago will be a paragraph or two in high school history lessons.  It will be used by politicians for a decade or so more because at 25 years and the trajectory of the world as it's hurtling through time, 25 years will seem ancient times. I weep that there may never be peace.

But I can seek solace.  Solace in the beauty of the light that shines on the new tower.  The early light of the morning that means a new birth of a new day.  In this light, as in the light that rose on September 11, 2001, the day is full of possibilities. I suppose this is how the human race has persevered, always remembering there is hope… and kindness. I may never live to see peace in this world throughout, however I will hope that kindness to each other prevails.