Heavy Days

I keep a rather obsessive calendar, but the dates that really matter, that are leaden with meaning, never get written down. I need no reminder because they are seared into my unconscious and skulk quietly in the background of my mind.

The day the towers fell and I was sitting in an auditorium, a senior in high school and I yelled at strangers because they were talking so loudly that I couldn’t hear the news coverage and people were trying to call their families in Manhattan and DC and oh my god can’t you see this is more important than who cheated first? SHUT. UP.

The day Sara died. The day David died. The day Charlie died.

I know I’m supposed to focus on the attacks today, but I can’t help but think about my friends. I feel guilty, but this is the loss I know and the loss I have gone through and the loss I have survived.  It is their faces that appear because I loved them. Because I have witnessed their loved ones try to let go and gather the pieces and face the future with courage.

When I think about 9/11, this is what comes: families and friends left behind, whole cities braving that kind of fight, leaning on each other and crying together and trying to live again.

I’m not someone who dwells in the past. I focus on the world I’d like to make and who I’d like to be and how I can get there. But some days are meant to be heavy – will always be heavy.

And so all I have to give today is my heavy heart, and the wish that your peaceful moments grow longer.