Just as none of us will ever be the same.
Our world was forever impacted on that day, in ways none of us could have foretold. There were economic, political and military impacts.... but most of all, emotional ones.
We will all forever remember what we were doing when we heard the awful news of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Flight 93.
I was driving to my office at DFW Airport. By the time I arrived, it was eerily silent: all flights had been grounded. We waited for news of our coworkers, weeping as we heard the updates. For days, months, we hung onto every news update, every account for some bit of information that we didn't have before. We brutalized ourselves by watching the films over and over again, picking the scabs off the wounds to make them bleed again.
Four years later, a more personal tragedy doubled the impact of this date for me. On Saturday, September 10, my husband died from a massive heart attack. He had lived with congenital heart problems and mental illness for a long time, but this time, what appeared to be a panic attack proved instead to be fatal.
On Sunday - Patriots Day - I went out to meet his children, to make final arrangements for him. The flags were at half-mast. The faces of strangers were solemn. The world was heartbroken and angry.
And it all merged.
Those flags, that solemn music, that anger, was for him. My heart broke and I cried for him, for my family, for my country, and all those who died that day, and all those who survived.
I blamed myself for his death. I should have been paying closer attention, I told myself. I should have done something, anything to save him. But that was not my purpose.
My purpose was to love him, fiercely and fearlessly.
I believe that is the highest purpose for all of us: to love fearlessly. In the face of fear, anger, heartbreak; to be brave and to love.
And in the face of this ongoing war-with-no-end, I offer you some images of beauty, and peace.
