September 11, 2024
Today is Wednesday, September
11, 2024. And today many of us here in Canada take time to reflect on the
brazen events that struck our neighbors to the south twenty-three years ago
today.
It’s important that we
remember days like today. It’s important that the names of the murdered are
read aloud, that moments of silence are observed. It’s important that, for as
long as those of us who were alive when in happened still have breath in our
bodies, that those who perished that day are kept from the shadows of irrelevance
by the simple acts of our commemoration, of our hearing their names spoken
aloud.
There have been other days, both
before and since the one we recognize today. Days when man has inflicted horrors
against his fellow man, other days that, as was noted in a speech in the
aftermath of one of such event that occurred on December 7, 1941, truly do “live
in infamy”.
I think that to be human is to
understand that no matter what else may change in life, moments of great
tragedy and solemn commemoration will always be with us.
We all fretted, over the
course of the couple of years during which Covid-19 had us in its grip, that we
would never get back to normal ever again. But normal isn’t something etched in
stone. Normal, like the people who seem so desperately to need it, has an ever
changing, ever evolving definition.
What was normal for me when I
was a young mother raising my children is nothing like what was normal for me in
the weeks and months before Covid—and certainly nothing like my normal of today.
We think that so many things need to stay just so in order for us to know
stability, but that’s not necessarily true. Most of us do thrive if we have an
anchor in this life, but it doesn’t have to be the same anchor for all of us.
And our anchors, in fact, don’t
need to be external. They can be our own moral compasses; or they can be our
faith. If you make them something internal, then they have that extra layer of
protection, a shield that keeps them strong and sure: You cannot take from me
what you cannot see or grasp within me.
Then there are some universal
anchors. Good is still good and bad is still bad. Right and wrong have not
switched places. We know what’s up and what’s down, and we have enough sense of
self to understand that we are in control of our own hearts and minds and to
varying degrees, our own bodies (I am getting older, I remind you).
Those who died on September
11, 2001had families who loved them and grieved for them. But after a period of
time, those families and loved ones carried on. Many of their children now have
children of their own. Wives and husbands left behind will most surely have
grieved, and some may have found new loves. The parents who were left to bury
their children following that dreadful day? Now that is a hard one. As one who
has experienced this kind of loss, I can tell you that there is a part of your
lost child who occupies a place in your heart from birth to eternity. And I can
tell you that yes, the day eventually comes when you will smile before you’ll
cry, thinking of them.
But you will likely always,
from time to time, still cry.
It’s good to go forward and to
not forget those loved ones lost. It’s good to take the time, to have those
moments of silence, and to hear those names—names that have also been etched in
stone close to the place called “ground zero”.
It’s good, because they were people,
and because, like all people, they mattered. They mattered to their
loved ones, their friends, and their coworkers. They mattered to their
communities. We matter, you and I. Each of us matters, we humans who are a
blessed creation of Almighty God. We are not meant to be ignored, pushed
around, treated like chattel or used as if we are powerless props by any who
would seek to enhance themselves by stepping on us to reach their next level.
We are a part of humanity, and
the only thing that there will be left, at the end of the day, is the memory of
how humanity—both collectively and individually—mattered.
I hope you were able to take
some quiet moments from a busy life, especially on this day, to pause and reflect.
Love,
Morgan
https://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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