Today marks the 14th anniversary of September 11th, 2001. A day most people alive and self-aware remember with intense clarity. The media described it as, “An Attack On America”, The Twin Towers Fell (The World Trade Center Towers in New York City, NY), The Pentagon was targeted and hit. The weapon? Airplanes, an invention I’d seen as meant to carry beings from one place to another safely, long distances traversed in a timely manner. The weapon, was one I’d always seen and used as a tool. An Airplane was used for a common good, bringing people together, connecting with one another, traveling for vacation and/or business. On 9/11/01 an airplane was identified in my eyes as a powerful weapon of mass destruction.
Just shy of 9:00am EST I sat at my desk in the
Meijer Warehouse in Lansing, MI eagerly waiting my first break of the day. I
was a smoker back then as well as today. I finished a phone call with a truck
dispatcher, at the time I was a Junior Logistics Analyst, and I headed into the
break room to find other smokers to chat with for my 15 minute break. The women
who usually joined me at the same time were finishing their own projects and
would be along shortly. A dock worker who made the most amazing breakfasts for
the workforce when it was required to work over the weekend, was watching TV
and I stopped next to him to check out the television as well.
A finger of ice raced up and down my spine,
something didn’t quite make sense on the television screen. One of the towers,
(TWC) in New York City was on fire. A plane had flown into it. I stared at the
screen as the dock worker made an off-handed comment, “I guess the Empire State
Building wanted to be the tallest building in New York City again.” I looked at
him, started to laugh and stopped, because no, that was not what I was watching
unfold on the TV screen. We watched LIVE as the second plane flew into the
second tower.
My stomach plummeted. The world was wrong,
something was wrong, WRONG, WRONG. Very wrong, soul-crushing wrong. A panic
sent my feet along with the rest of me to the corporate office pocket at the
back of the warehouse where I worked at the time to try to explain to my
co-workers what I was seeing on the television. All I could say was they had to
come see the TV. They had to see what I was seeing and it seemed for a moment,
no one could hear my plea and I had no idea if I’d been able to voice it. I
rushed back and dropped into a chair in the break room and watched things
unfold. The reports. The theories. The planes, weapons, destroying pieces of
America, my country. Panic and fear and my mind screamed WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!
After a cigarette or two, maybe five I can’t
remember I found myself at my desk. I was on the phone with one of my favorite
dispatchers. He wanted to know if I knew what was going on, I didn’t, but I
understood something major, so I admitted my awareness of the planes, the
grounding of flights, and he told me his trucks, were all stopped. Stuck. Not
only that, all the transportation of Meijer products, via trains, whatever the
vehicle, my logistics job, was in stop mode. I couldn’t do my job, because
planes were being used as a weapon of mass destruction.
My boss told me to go home about two hours later.
I went to the Meijer store around the corner from my house. Patriotic music
played as I shopped for food. I called my grandmother, I called my sperm donor
and my step-mother. I called a friend’s mother I knew was living in New York at
the time. Her mother had no news. I watched television as banners crossed the
bottom of my TV screen, ‘Attack On America’. ‘United Flight 93’. I’d watched
the Tower fall in real time, but the video was on repeat across my screen and
no amount of blankets blocked the cold, crushing me as I huddled on my couch
and cried.
I forgot about the concert ticket in my wallet for
the band, A Perfect Circle scheduled that evening. It didn’t matter, the
concert was rescheduled. The entire world was on pause, stuck in tragedy and
pain. A pain vibrated across the United States of America and I’m positive I’m
not the only who at that time didn’t understand the biggest question of all. WHY?
So yes, I remember. I REMEMBER what happened. I
will always REMEMBER what happened 14 years ago today. Today, I know for me
personally, I have to forgive to heal from major pain. Recently I had to
forgive my sperm donor (bio-dad) for telling me he wished I’d been an abortion
when I was 12 years old. I had to forgive him for being addicted to alcohol. I
had to forgive him for loving alcohol more than he loved me. I’ve done that, I
said it right before he died, but recently I finally accepted it and forgave
him. I dropped that BONE, never to be picked up again and scratch at the wounds
he left on me with his careless words.
As to the events of this day, 14 years ago, I’m
going to continue the practice that makes it easier for me to look forward to a
brighter future. I want to see a world of endless possibilities and wonders. I
can’t wait for my planet to venture further into the universe and discover the
other beings out there. I highly doubt the human race is the only conscious
beings in the Universe, it’s too vast and unmapped for that to be true.
So I choose to #AlwaysForgive and to Remember the
painful life lesson I learned 14 years ago today. Many lives paid for this
lesson, so I will remember that human beings need to communicate better with
one another. I learned that war and destruction is a very old BONE way of
dealing with conflict, and personally, I’ve dropped the old Bones, never to be
chewed on again in my life. These bones are dead and devoid of marrow, they
have no value in my life. I won’t gnaw on a bone that can only feed my phantom soul
pain. There is no nutritional value in that for me.
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