My father passed away almost 2 months ago now. It's amazing how it hasn't weighed on my mind. The worst day since the end of the funeral was the day I had to review voicemail messages that were due to be deleted..."Andra, this is Dad. Andra, this is Dad..." I guess Daddy forgot that voicemail can't be heard until you listen to it. Save. The second message, "Andra, this is Dad. Call me back..." Must've occurred to him it was a cell phone message. Save. "This message will be saved for 21 days." Yea, I'll wait and try to deal with it then.
My father and I were really close when I was little. I know what happened to make it all go south. It doesn't matter how, why, or when. All that matters is that those years that we missed each other don't matter near as much as the first 10 years and the last 10. It was almost 10 years ago when we started talking again. On 9/11/2001, it all seemed so unimportant what happened in between; it reminded me how important my father was to me. My father's office was 10 blocks from ground zero. It was November, a little over a week before Thanksgiving, before I could get a call into New York.
But this is not about my father, it is about September 11, 2001 and every 9/11 to follow. That fateful day, I was driving to school from my apartment in Anderson, South Carolina to Clemson University. I had gotten the boys to school and run my usual mile and a half. It was sunny, beautiful really. Temperature was moderate, fairly dry for the deep south, and the morning smelled of fresh dew. As I reached my turn off 28, the DJ was saying that a plane had flown into the first of the twin towers. "That's not funny," I remember thinking and changed the channel. I thought it was a joke, a bad humor joke. I found some music and finished my drive into Clemson, picked a parking lot close to my classes that day, and managed a decent spot. Grabbed my stuff and was off to class. My class was on the 3rd floor in a classic building where the stairwells were all those old wide school style stairs. At the top of the stairs, stopped and grabbed my usual wake-up call, 12-ounce can of Coke and Cheetos, and off to class. As I walked in, the class was somber. A few were watching live feed on a computer...the second tower had been hit and the first stood burning...and then dropped. I was sick. I couldn't imagine. I don't recall what happened after that. Nada, zip, zilch.
I remember that most of us couldn't fathom what, why or when. Flight 93's fate was on the radio by the time that I hit the sub shop on campus. I was having flashbacks to the fateful flight of the Challenger...standing in a room of close to 800 University of Toledo students watching the amazing launch of civilian astronauts and wondering if that one day could be one of us in that room, only to witness the most unbelievable explosion. The room had gone completely silent. We were stunned and no one spoke. The Clemson campus on September 11, 2001 was the same. We didn't speak. We sat at our usual tables in between our classes, with our usual study partners and friends. But we were stunned. We watched and listened in horror as the day unfolded. Tower two dropping, Flight 93, the Pentagon...
That day, any day like that, in silence we are all family. There is no stranger, no cause that could separate us, no resolve. Just shock. Then as the silence breaks, we are Americans. We fought for freedom from what we thought was an unfair British King. We fought ourselves over the freedom of all men. We fought for the freedom of Europeans devastated by two World Wars. We shocked the Japanese as we bore arms for the decimation of Pearl Harbor. The next day, no silence. Anger, frustration, many of us contemplating military service or returning to military service. Those few weeks that followed, hurt individuals, ruined individual lives, changed all of us forever. But with a quickening reminded all of us, we are American. We believe in fair, even if sometimes we forget to apply it. We believe in honest fair warfare, even if we have attacked our own in spite, foolish pride, or just plain ignorance--Timothy McVey, Eric Rudolph, Ruby Ridge, Michigan Militia, Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation...you name the homegrown terrorists, we have little to no sympathy because we believe in fair. Innocent deaths are unfair. They go against our deepest rooted beliefs. All men (and women) are created equal. We may suffer sometimes from our own hypocrisy, but we believe no innocent death should suffer silently unanswered.
So many innocent deaths that day...not just Americans. Many countries sent representatives to the World Trade Centers. It was an epicenter not just of American commerce, but of world commerce and hope--the United Nations. So little has been said of the United Nations since that fateful fall day in 2001. But, what it stands for, is that in spite of our differences, whether nationally or globally, we all, American, European, Asian, dream and hope.
What Al Queda would have the world believe is Americans are divided, bickering amongst ourselves, focusing on our own differences and self-absorbed infidels. Perhaps at times we are. We are, after all, only human. Show me anyone that isn't a little selfish at times, and I'll show you Mother Theresa. Even Ghandi admitted times of weakness. But we are not a divided country. The entirety of Europe doesn't meet the landmass of the United States. We are divided by our nature...Southerners, New Englanders, New Yorkers, the Badlanders, the Great Lakes, the Plains, the West, the Northwest, Texans and Californians. We are even divided by land and water--Alaskans and Hawaiians. But we are Americans...This is our country--United We Stand. We may not agree with our cousins from another region of our great land, but the one thing that holds us fast together is a belief of freedom for all.
We know freedom is not free, and we have been willing to give our lives--our brothers', sisters', husbands', wives', sons' and daughters' lives, for the better of all. It is saddening to find an organization like Al Queda that would test that resolve for freedom, but like so many terrorist groups, just as our own homegrown terrorist groups, they only see their own agenda. I'm not even sure that they know what their agenda truly is--sure to protect their people--but beyond that? Hitler dreamed of a strong Germany again...his hidden agenda--genocide. Lenin dreamed of 100% communal equality...the final agenda was a small group of Communist party members running the show and living like kings, and with Stalin in charge--genocide. We've, Americans, even made the mistake of backing these men that would be saviors of their people like Saddam Hussein. But history, hopefully, has taught us that they would turn on us and turn to--genocide. Saddam's regime annihilated at least 250K people for having a different religious definition of the same religion. Al Queda has already been confirmed to have a very extreme version of Islam. They would genocide all of us--Christian, Jewish, other Muslims, Buddhists, atheists.
As this new holiday, Patriot Day, September 11th, 2011, will come and pass, take notice our resolve. Let us not forget those that give their lives for our freedoms and for the freedom that we believe is not just for Americans, but for all people. God Bless America (or just Bless America, for the atheists)--the greatest country in the world, not just because of what makes us the same but what makes us different. Let us celebrate that we have overcome terrorists, homegrown and foreign. Let us remind the world that testing our resolve only brings us closer regardless of our differences. Let them know that all Americans are Patriots and this is our day.
No comments:
Post a Comment