As a parent, knowing my older daughter was starting her freshman year on the same campus as the Bush daughters, which potentially put her in danger, was frighteningly real and scary. My younger daughter was 5, not understanding why her parents were just sitting and crying in front of the TV that evening and for days afterwards. Even I was startled at the intensity of my own reaction. But then, nothing like this had ever happened in my life thus far that was so very, very life-altering on a national scale.
Today is not about politics, or conspiracies, or anything else. It's
about something that was intensely personal; and at least for a time,
about the shining moments of people helping each other, reaching out and
connecting to others that they would not normally have done. It was
about the American spirit rising up, the hidden soul of the country,
that I have always had faith was there even amongst the conflict and
turmoil of a (historically speaking) still-evolving new nation.
Sure, in time we all went back to our internal bickering, as dysfunctional families do. And the temporary swell of patriotic fervor was used to justify a vile act that will have long-term repercussions. But that is not what today is about.
I choose to remember, today, that moment in time when we all stood as one people, sharing a universal communal grief. As Joseph Campbell so eloquently stated, “Here was an enormous nation, made those four days into a unanimous community, all of us participating in the same way, simultaneously, in a single symbolic event…..It was the first and only thing of its kind in peacetime that has ever given me the sense of being a member of this whole national community, engaged as a unit in the observance of a deeply significant rite."
Goddess bless those who crossed the Veil that day; and those who survived and carried the experience with them. Goddess bless the responders who risked their lives, and who died in service to their community. Goddess bless those left behind; families and friends and a deeply grieving nation.
In their honor, remember what it felt like to put aside race, religion, and everything else that usually tends to divide us from each other. And then, do your best to keep that flame going wherever you are able. Sometimes we’ll succeed, sometimes we’ll falter. And that’s OK, as long as we pick ourselves up and keep going, keep trying. And #NeverForget.
Sure, in time we all went back to our internal bickering, as dysfunctional families do. And the temporary swell of patriotic fervor was used to justify a vile act that will have long-term repercussions. But that is not what today is about.
I choose to remember, today, that moment in time when we all stood as one people, sharing a universal communal grief. As Joseph Campbell so eloquently stated, “Here was an enormous nation, made those four days into a unanimous community, all of us participating in the same way, simultaneously, in a single symbolic event…..It was the first and only thing of its kind in peacetime that has ever given me the sense of being a member of this whole national community, engaged as a unit in the observance of a deeply significant rite."
Goddess bless those who crossed the Veil that day; and those who survived and carried the experience with them. Goddess bless the responders who risked their lives, and who died in service to their community. Goddess bless those left behind; families and friends and a deeply grieving nation.
In their honor, remember what it felt like to put aside race, religion, and everything else that usually tends to divide us from each other. And then, do your best to keep that flame going wherever you are able. Sometimes we’ll succeed, sometimes we’ll falter. And that’s OK, as long as we pick ourselves up and keep going, keep trying. And #NeverForget.
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