Preface: If I offend or bother anyone about anything I say, this will be one of the few times in my entire life I won't apologise. These are my thoughts, and I want people to understand what I've been thinking about and my feelings about certain things. This note contains serious business. Seriously. Consider this a warning, if you need one.
Of September 11, 2011. Tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, otherwise known as the most horrific and terrible terrorist attack upon the United States of the America. In one of my classes that day (as it was during a weekday- Tuesday morning, approximately 8:46am, according to The Other Wiki), my social studies teacher, Mr. Feller, told us that this was the JFK assassination of our generation. That until the day we die, we would always remember where we were when it happened. Ten years later, he seems to be right.
I was in 7th grade at the time. I was in Mrs. Green's electronic media class (all I remember from that was messing around with Powerpoint a lot), and we were in the IMC (fancy acronym for the school library) checking out books. The tvs in there always played the news, so no one ever paid any attention to them. But then someone was like, "Dude! Look!" And we saw replay after replay of the planes crashing into the towers. At the time, we thought it was the coolest thing ever. Before you explode on me for being a heartless insensitive prick, bear in mind that I was what, 12, at the time? I hadn't even begun playing video games yet. I knew large explosions from movies, like Independence Day. It was happening in New York City. I barely knew where that was. And it was on a TV. Which helped disconnect me more from it- it was on a TV, it wasn't real life, just another act on the screen.
The next day, the principal announced a moment of silence for those who died in the attacks. Anyone who knows me well enough may smile at this. I thought he just wanted everyone to be quiet for a few minutes. So I did that the best way I knew how- by pulling out a book. This may surprise MANY of my college friends, but I am and always have been an avid reader. College life and video games pulled me away from that a bit, especially since the only things to read were college texts.
I got a talking to. Mr. Hauswald (the Jeff variety that taught math in junior high- his father taught science in the middle school) called my mom at the end of the day (she worked as the librarian at the elementary and was only a few thousand feet away) and I got grilled. Hard. I didn't know what I'd done wrong- I'd been quiet, hadn't I? Later that night my mom explained what a moment of silence was, and told me to sit in my room, reflect on it and try to see it from the perspective of the people involved.
That was probably a bad decision. It turned out similar to the time I tried to imagine what being dead was like after a string of family deaths. Let's just say that it's a very dark corner in my mind and is the reason why death is my biggest fear. My mind filled itself with fire, and smoke, and that place. Not a fun thing for the mind of a young almost-teen.
And we haven't gotten away from it. Ten years later, I'm in the last half of a short-time job surveying wind turbines for bird and bat fatalities. Last weekend, I finally found out what the NPR/PRI channel was out here, so I've been listening to that. For the past week, almost every other blip is some story about or relating to, you guessed it, 9/11. I am not a very emotional person, at least in the crying sense. I don't cry very often. Considering how soon ago my emotional meter emptied, I shouldn't have to cry for a long time. I've sat through the Notebook and only just got misty-eyed. I watched RENT with 5 girls and a gay guy, but didn't cry (they were bawling). But the past 3 days I've almost cried my heart out listening to someone talking about how they were there, or about someone they knew who was, whether they got out or not. Those kinds of stories get to me- radio, newspaper, TV.
This morning, approximately 24 hours before the tenth anniversary of the event, I got a huge dose of it. For 3 hours straight the radio was almost nothing but, and this morning was so misty and foggy that the sun couldn't be found until nearly 11. Walking the roads and pads amidst the corn and the muffled monoliths, barely seen and heard, was a very pensive time. When out in the middle of fields, I'm using thinking, aloud, about something on the Internet, or about a game (I.e. League of Legends). But this morning I thought about us. I thought about them. I thought about loss; I thought about the world.
I realized that to make a difference, to change the world for the better, you don't need to do anything special. You just need to do something. Something small. But something meant. You don't even need to do it for or to someone else. You need to do it for yourself. If you change a little thing inside, someone else will see it. Then they'll change a little thing, and someone else will notice. Eventually, the world will be a slightly better place. And that's only if one person starts. If 2 people do it, if 3 people.... can you imagine 3 people, changing the world?
So out there, in the middle of the corn and the mist and the windmills, the day before the most infamous day in US history since WWII, I sang. I sang the Star Bangled Banner. I sang for myself. I sang for my family. I sang for my friends. I sang for everyone I knew and everyone I had ever met. I sang for those I hadn't. I sang for those lost; for those taken; for America; for the world.
A lot of people, especially young people, are voicing opinons that they're tired of hearing about 9/11. Especially ten years after the fact. Tired of getting it crammed down their throats. Tired of people treating it like the worst thing to ever happen. I agree- on the last point.
I was not in New York City. I was not on any of those flights. No one I knew or was related too was injured or killed in the attacks, even though I have family in Pennsylvania, New York (state), New Jersey. But having experienced loss many times in my life, and having aged and matured since that fateful day, I can [at least somewhat] begin to understand what it meant, and what it means. Especially in retrospect, which is basically the only way I think about things.
My Aunt Pat Barker was killed in an attempted robbery when I was in 6th grade. Out of my many aunts and uncles, she and Uncle Joe was some of the ones we kept in touch with the most, as they lived the closest to us (So. IN is closer to Tennessee than Missouri, or the East Coast). At least until she died.
My [step]grandmother Marie Ruester died from leukemia, and was one of the more grandmotherly grandmothers I have (/had). Baking cookies, pot roast, the whole nine yards. I creid at this funeral.
My grandfather, William Lasky, my father's father, who died from a heart attack before I knew him. I don't actually know if it was before I was born or not. I don't remember anything before my 4th birthday, and that was when I got my first bicycle. A man I never knew, one whom I've only heard about from rare and fleeting stories from my dad, or my aunts ( my dad has a lot of sisters).
My cousin Jason Beltz, one of my closest cousins, considering the afformentioned distance between relations. He was very close to my and my brothers' age, closer than almost any other cousin. He wore a back brace due to scoliosus and was allergic to cat and dog hair- something he always had to contend with when he came to our pet-infested household. He committed suicide; to this day I have no idea why. But he is the reason I take suicide very seriously. He was young- my memory fails on details such as when he or Grandma Marie died, but I do know he had not yet graduated high school.
My Nanna, my father's mother Dorothy "Dot" Lasky. She had been very near, if not, a "vegetable" for several years prior. She died my senior year of high school, I believe from old age, her mind taken long before her body. Many of my memories of visiting her are of the nursing home's smell, her not knowing we were there, and the papery feel of her cheek of hello and goodbye kisses she never knew about.
In 9th grade, I even wrote a reflection essay about Death, yes the personification, and how he was reasonably well known in our household. Always recognized, yet never welcome, the eternal nightmare of houseguests everywhere.
Am I rambling? Maybe. Do I care if I am? Maybe. So to tie this back in.
Hear me out before you judge, if you haven't judged me already. Yes, I am tired of hearing about 9/11. Not because I think it isn't important, but because I believe it's not the most important thing for us to remember.
Remebering September 11 shouldn't be only about those lost in the attacks (as callous as that sounds), but forALL those lost unfairly, taken unjustly. Suicide, car crashes, natural disasters, terrorists attacks, war- these are all tragedies, and not only the big ones deserve to be remembered. One person dies in a car crash with a drunk driver, 40 people in a plane crash, 411 rescue workers dying is fires... each is meaningful, though to different people in different ways.
What I'm proposing for you to do tomorrow, and on September 11 every year from now on, is not to belittle the losses and sacrifices from that day, nor to remember only those lost that day.
I say- remember those lost. Remember those fallen. Remember those taken. Loved ones, cherished ones- take September 11 and make it a day of remembrance, for any and all lost, taken, sacrificed. Soldiers, civilians, firefighters, students, aunts, uncles, children, mother and fathers, and everyone in between.
We will never win a war on terror. Or on drugs. Or sex, or anything else we "declare war" on that's not a sovereign nation. Not because they're better or more dedicated or stronger, but because we're not fighting a battle. We're fighting ourselves. As long as there are humans, there will be fanatics, abusers, extremists, psychotics. One person may not be, but may become one. We as a species are extremely adaptable- our greatest strength and our worst weakness. Because we are humans fighting not only humans, but human nature, we will not win, cannot win, any war against terror, terrorism, or terrorists. Because when one falls, another will rise up to take his/her place.
We will never win. But we don't have to. Because Damn It, we will never Stop Fighting. When you remember a loved one, when you crack a smile at a distant memory, or shed a tear at the present absence, you are fighting. You are remembering. And we CAN. NOT. LOSE. Not as long as we love, and cherish, and remember. We Can Not, and We Will Not.
No one is safe from tragedy. From loss. From pain. But in our remembrance, we are united. We are one. We are family. So remember. Remember those you have lost. Those that have been taken. Those that have been sacrificed, and those who sacrificed themselves. Not only from 9/11, but from the world. From humanity. From life.
For all those, for ours and theirs, I sang this morning. I plan to do it again tomorrow.
I ask you. Sometime tomorrow. Whether at 8:46am, 2:58pm, or 11:59pm, anytime, anywhere- sing with me.
Sing the song that unites our nation such as nothing else has or will.
Sing with me.
Sing with us.
Sing with the world.
Sing for us all.
Sing for yesterday.
Sing for today.
Sing for tomorrow.
Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
PS- I had the overwhelming urge to call my parents to tell them I loved them this morning, but didn't think I could on account of them being in Jamaica for their anniversary. Turns out I could, because they called me and I got to tell them anyway.
Esther Day is better late than never.
PPS- If Hank Green reads this, I am the Nerdfighter than was from Indiana at the Harry and the Potters concert in Missoula.
PPPS- DFTBA
Sincerely,
~Wisherex
