A Mile of Stones

Catastrophic events often serve as "milestones" for our lives and the events that have shaped them since. In the past few weeks we've all been treated to innuumerable pundits, politicians, and newscasters telling how much we (the USA) have changed since that fateful day in September of 2001. In fact we have. Change is natural, expected, and unstoppable. The question is have we changed for the better? Ask any person born pre-1950 where they were the day John F. Kennedy was shot and they'll tell you very specifically where they were, and what they were doing-- almost down to how the weather was that November day. Incredibly you would most likely find the same is true even for foreigners, as JFK was probably more beloved abroad than he was in the US. The WTC catastrophe will be that defining event for this generation.

The sheer magnitude of the World Trade Tower attacks would almost be unfathomable were it not for thousands of images, videos, and eyewitness accounts of this horrific event. It left PinF wondering whether there had ever been such devestation and heartbreak caught live on television that involved so many lives? Probably not. This fact is probably what has insulated us from so many other horrific and violent events in this world we live. Again, this fact serves to make this event a "milestone" for millions upon millions of people worldwide. Life has changed and not just for Americans; life has changed for the world we once knew, a world we so many people were either lost in their own innocence, or blissfully ignorant to the threats facing us all as we began a new century in an increasingly smaller, hostile, world. A world with more people than ever living oppressed and starving, and as refugees from their homelands.

PinF remembers well exactly what he was doing. He was preparing his daughter for pre-school while dressing for work. I had an appointment with a client after dropping my daughter at school. I turned on the news maybe 5 minutes after the first tower was struck. Confusion reigned. Morning talk hosts had conflicting and convoluted reports. Then came the first video images confirming what we were being told.....the day stopped right there. Shortly thereafter the next plane, the next tower. After being delayed for over an hour I took Sophie to school where I was met by stunned teachers and parents, their children completely shielded from the day's ugly realities by their innocence and age. I got on with my day, glued to my car radio and went about in a funk listening to the unprecedented news that ALL commercial aviation was grounded and that we were now on a war posture having been attacked for the first time since Pearl Harbor. But with whom? For all we did know that day, there was even more we didn't know. One thing we all knew was that life as we knew it was forever changed. The innocence, the detachment from world events and the threats they posed was all coming to a quick end. Americans were to learn what Europeans and much of the rest of the world already knew; no one is immune from terrorism.

I could go on about how "we" have changed-- airport security lines, knee-jerk ractions to Mexican border issues and host of other hysterically motivated laws and reactionary changes. I won't though, because we all know what they are. Like I said this event is a "milestone" and what it does is serve to guage and organize the events in our own lives a little more clearly. For instance, I think based on this event and maybe the London bombings too, that we've all probably told people we loved and cared about how much we really do love and care about them. As we all saw like never before the fragile nature of our lives reflected in the thousands of family members posting pictures of their missing loved ones. I know I held my daughter nearer and told her even more how much I loved her.

PinF can recollect five tough years of losses, sacrifices and changes since that day, all of which may nor have been so clear or noticed if not for the "mile-post" of 9-11. My father's health took what we would now define as a fateful turn during December of 2001, this was and continues to be reverberating event in mine and my other brother's lives. My mother would leave a much shakier nation in search of her dream by serving in the Peace Corps in January 2002, just three months after the attacks. Weighing evn more heavily than the state of leaving her sons, grandchildren and many friends was the fact that she had just learned her sister Rosemary was dignosed with terminal lung cancer. This five year period would also come at a great personal price to PinF as his marriage would end and he would see his daughter's heart nicked a bit from the loss of her innocence.

Life is for the living so you must push on. If nothing else the sight of so many suffering families at least served to put many of our own trivial and mundane worries or fears into perspective. I'm sure as I made my way through the intricacies of my divorce I was always able to put into perspective the forces that were in fact shaping my life thereby allowing me to remain sane, level headed, and sure in my beliefs that "this too would pass". It did. My mother got through her 2.5 years of personal sacrifice and was enriched for her service, though her losses were evident as well having lost her sister five months into her service with the Peace Corps. She returned from Honduras, and I remember well having to break the news to her when she called me from Houston informing me of her home-bound flight progress. I couldn't let her continue on to Philadelphia holding out hope that she would say the last words she longed to tell her sister, and so I told her that her sister Rosemary had passed not but an hour before. She appreciated this and was able to steel herself for the challenges that lay ahead. Remarkably she returned to Honduras 2 weeks later and not only continued, but thrived in her life, her mission, and her willingness to honor the commitment she made.

Not long after my mother's return I was privilaged to be asked to introduce her to her high school alma mater to be inducted into the "Hall of Fame", a fitting end to a arduous journey. Soon after this event the end of my marriage my father's health took a disturbingly and continous downward spiral offering all my brothers' and me a continuing challenge that many adults will one day face, though at the time it was seemingly overwhelming for me personally. Like all faith shaking events in our lives' there lies messages and lessons, and I continue to draw mine from the events that lead me to be in St. Agnes Hospice in South Philadelphia on that fateful day on March 13, 2006 as my father drew his last breath, his head cradled in my arms, surrounded by myself and my brothers Chris and Rob. PinF has had the privilage to see people he has loved more than anything be both born and die. Each have their own powerful and beautiful elements and are the very core fiber of the life experience itself, to see the first breath and to hear the last. Incredibly they are one in the same, as they both begin and end with a gasp.

So now here we are five years past an event that in many ways seemed as if we would never recover from the scars it left. We have, and yet we haven't forgotten - we cannot. The changes 9-11 brought are hopefully temporary, as we've sacrificed as many civil freedoms in five years as we've fought to preserve as a nation in 200+ years. Not to mention the paranoia, dread, and general lack of hope for the future of mankind in a world where the inequities of civilizations are settled in barbaric and brutal ways such as slamming airplanes into buildings filled with innocents. PinF has said it before. Take the trillion dollars this war is guesstimated to cost the American taxpayers and seed the world with education, respect for all views and not just our allies, and then throw in some medical goodwill, schools, and civil improvements. I would be willing to risk that we might be safer as a nation, people and world if we stopped spreading bombs in the name of democracy, and started spreading peaceful dialogue propped up by tangible improvements in the lives of those who hold such hatred for our obviously failed policies.

Five years gone. Much has changed. PinF's prayers are especially for the families directly affected. These include ALL families, from the WTC victims and their survivors, to the soldiers' and their loved ones and to the many tens of thousands of innocents who've lost their homes, and lives in far away lands as a result of our pre-emptive doctrines of war. I supect the world will need longer to forget and heal from our reactions to 9-11 than we as Americans will need to recover from the act itself.