Wednesday's Words for September 11, 2019

One of the most vivid memories I have in the immediate aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, is driving from the city next door back to our town. Just before reaching one of the bridges that spans the expressway, a new billboard had been erected. Featuring the flags of the United States of America, and Canada, the words were simple, and to the point: “We stand with our neighbors. God Bless America.”

Eighteen years on, we live in a different world than the one we inhabited prior to that day of infamy. The immediate visceral response at the time was the surge in patriotism, the temporary dissolution of partisanship, and the new determination that this would never happen again.

Also in the immediate aftermath, we—all of us in North America—had our collective naiveté badly shaken from the events of that day. Terrorism used to be something that happened over there, be it Britain, Europe, or the middle east. Now, it was something that could happen here, too. As time passed and hearts hardened, we became more vigilant, leaving our naiveté behind forever.

I’m going to make an analogy here, and I hope you’ll forgive me if I somehow offend you. That’s not my intent. The attitude of our two governments, in the wake of that grievous attack, could have gone one of two ways. The options are not dissimilar to the psychology of parents who’ve lost a child.

I’ve heard it said that in more cases than not, parents who have suffered the death of one of their children, drift apart. I know that, because some professionals have commented on the fact that they’re pleasantly surprised that my husband and I are still together in the aftermath of the loss of our son, Anthony. My response to that has been, yes, we are together, but life is different now. We are different now, because the death of a child changes you—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse—but it changes you, and that change is forever.

Twenty-four Canadians died in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. The losses suffered on 9/11 changed us all, Americans more than Canadians, yes. But changed us it has and now, eighteen years on, we have to think about those changes, what they’ve rendered within us, and what they’ve wrought outwardly. And we must decide whether or not those changes are to be our final answer, as it were, to the attacks by those terrorists.

I won’t offer an opinion here, but I will pose the question to my American friends: is your “marriage”, the unity of your nation, in good standing—or are you drifting apart? It’s a serious question, because without unity, without a sense of common purpose, how will you decide which direction to travel next through life? Without the strength of a strong union, how will you fend off the attacks of the vultures of this world, those who prey on others?

For couples who’ve lost a child, there’s often counselling. Questions are posed and answers sought out, but at the base of all those questions is this one basic principle: we cannot change the reality of the loss we suffered, and so, we have to decide if the legacy of our loss is to be the dissolution of our marriage. In my opinion, to dissolve the marriage is to reduce the meaning of the lives lived and now ended.

There’s an expression that has been used forever, it seems, and one I never understood until we lost our son. That expression: “I don’t want to think that he/she died in vain.” I used to think, well, death is death, what does it matter if it was in vain or not?

But the loved ones of those who pass who are able to donate their beloved’s organs to strangers in need, for example, can justify that if their loved one had to die, at least some good came from it. They did not die in vain.

Death, loss, unwanted change—these are the things that, we, as human beings suffer and struggle to understand. We endure them, because we have no choice. But once the dust has settled, and we begin to try and pick up the pieces and live day to day, I think it behooves us to take a moment to reflect. To remember what was and see what is, and ask ourselves some very, very hard questions.

Is this who we are? Is this what we want to stand for? Are we happier, now? Better now? More fruitful? Are we on the right track? We must put aside our politics, whether we identify as left, right, or center. Do we feel inspired to stand proud before the world? Or is gravity winning in that we hang our heads in recognition of a kind of failure we never imagined would ever be ours.

This is something everyone of us, and each one of us, needs answer for ourselves. And it is something that answer we must, as we have done, we humans, down through the ages, following every other hard test we’ve lived through. That’s where we stand, today, eighteen years after that day that changed everything.

The sentiment I opened with bears repeating, especially on this day. God Bless America.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury