10 September 2011

No Place Like Home

Is it just me or does it feel like so much more than ten years? Can you remember a time before?

Of the countless things that changed because of September 11, 2001, I had hoped to be one. My desire was palpable. In the days immediately following 9/11, my thoughts were continually arrested by my desire that the horrifying attacks would have a life changing effect on me. Some kind of change for the better. Not a change toward fear and paranoia. Paralysis.

But such that I would see the value of life more clearly, that the desires of my heart would rise to the top of my consciousness and overrule the ordinary, daily behaviour trenches I'd dug over time. That my actions would, from then on, be a true reflection of my core values and of the notes of my soul.

It was so important to me that I be profoundly changed. It was an ache. That I be able to take this incomprehensible series of catastrophic events and make something positive on a personal level. That my life never be the same. I journalled and I prayed. I wished and I wrote. I cried and I prayed some more.

Tears for the pain of the images on the news. The fliers and posters with faces of the 'missing.' The oppressive national grief. The destruction and rubble. The tireless energy of the digging and excavating. I cried and I watched for the moment.


The coverage. The news, the commentary, Oprah. People on the screen of my TV telling me they would never be the same. I believed them and wanted that too. I watched the celebrity fund raising specials. I wrote. I waited. But I felt only sadness. No awakening. No new found determination. Just overwhelming and deadening sadness.


At the same time, flags were suddenly everywhere. American flags painted and draped on anything. Americans openly proclaiming love of their homeland. Unabashed displays of emotion. In all my years, I had never seen my country so unified. It was stunning. Startling even. But served as a balm to my heart. It helped me breathe.



I was not raised in a particularly patriotic environment. My childhood, my family, the political air of that time leaned away from patriotism. Vietnam, Richard Nixon, the activism of the late Sixties, early Seventies. 'Love' and appreciation for country was not of high importance. Culturally, when 'cool' was paramount, it was seen as uncool to show blatant and open patriotism.



We were not a family of a strong military focus. My grandfather served in the Navy during World War II but never spoke of it.

In the weeks following that Tuesday in 2001, anything remotely patriotic made me weep. Do you remember how it was? Movies, songs, books. Everything became red, white and blue. Mostly genuine but also plenty of opportunistic marketing. I wept regardless. Uncontrollably. I felt utterly helpless. Not a comfortable emotion for a control freak like myself.



But I decided I loved my spanking new patriotism. I embraced it. I had never become emotional during the playing of the National anthem before 9/11. I never noticed where flags were flown, displayed, worn. Holidays like Memorial Day, Veteran's Day had always been lost on me. I was a child, a young girl, a woman who had taken her country, her citizenship for granted. But I'd suddenly become a puddle of grief and love and gratitude for my home.

In the months, even years since 2001, as the depth of my gratitude for country increased, I kept waiting, watching for my big change. That personal epiphany that would alter the course of my life. (I smile back at my belief.) And all along my patriotism grew and solidified. I watched for opportunities to thank the military patrons who came into my branch around Veteran's Day, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day. The anniversaries of September 11th. Teary and grateful, shaking their hands. I wrote a public piece on Veteran's Day for a blog at work a few years ago. It felt so good to nurture this side of myself.

Yet over time I began to criticize myself for the personal transformation that never happened. What kind of shallow, un-evolved soul must I be that 9/11 had not changed me at all?




My grandfather died on February 4th. This year. He was 94 years old. There is a great deal of harsh truth to say about this man that will go unsaid here. For now and for the most part.
He was buried with honors. I had never been to a military funeral.

I was undone.

My grandfather, with whom I had an intense and difficult relationship, was laid to rest in such a way as to bring about a life awareness I had failed to see before.



I would love nothing more than to fully and accurately articulate to you what the service was like but I can not. I probably was not meant to wrap it up in any kind of bow.

You cannot imagine, however, how startled I am to say that it was the most profound and moving moment of my life.



This statement includes:





  • the birth of my children,



  • watching my infant son being wheeled into open heart surgery,


  • then with great relief watching him wheeled back out six hours later.


This includes the night I sat next to someone as they drew their very last breath.





I stood in that cemetery with my family and the honor guard and have never been so moved. So deeply affected by one moment. Military personnel who volunteer for these services dressed in full dress uniform. Mostly sailors. Standing at strict attention to honor this veteran they never knew. When the gun salute went off, a cry came from deep within me that I was helpless to contain.

You know that scene near the end of The Wizard of Oz where Glinda explains that Dorothy doesn't need her help? That Dorothy had what she was longing for right there with her all along. I had my change immediately following 9/11. The moments the flags first appeared that day. Something I had all along but never stopped to appreciate before. My country. My citizenship. My home, given me at birth.



With her sometimes crazy, insane administrators. With some unthinkable political directions and decision: past, present and future. With all of her glory and flaws, arrogance, in her successes and broken parts, with her often bewildering and misplaced priorities, I love my country. I never knew this before September 11, 2001.







POST SCRIPT:

In an attempt to continue my healing, every year for the past ten years I've found different ways to stop.

I've stopped to write:



I've stopped to read:




  • Joe McNally's Faces Of Ground Zero














  • Watching the World Change by David Friend.



I've stopped to watch documentaries:



I've stopped by way of fiction:




  • The movie Reign Over Me with Adam Sandler


  • The novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer


During my Tillicum Library years, I spent days gathering and arranging September 11th library material in our display window. It was a helpful, healing display, more so for me than for anyone who happened by.



Most years I stop at nearby fire stations to leave flowers. I hope that it was appreciated by the fire fighters at the stations but it was I who most needed the act. The search for healing.

This year was a little different for me this way, but that is another post for another day.



I hope you remembered to stop.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. Thank you for your truth and tears and love.

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for making us think. You always do that... Whether we knew or not, we all changed... and we changed that day. We lost the innocent belief that we were safe. Maybe not safe from our own destructive behavior, but definitely safe from the outside world and what it meant to wake up the next morning and realize, just like other countries, we are vulnerable. In one horrific act of terror, we have a tiny glimpse of what it must be for families to wake up to a smaller, more personal 9/11 every single day. For 250,000 civilians in Iraq, their struggle to understand is finished. That is the reality.

And I do know, that as I sit here in the relative safety of my home, under the flight path of McChord Air Force Base, I am so thankful I wasn't born under a different flag. I am "true to my school." I may not respect the "principal" or like the "teachers, but I wear my colors proudly.