This evening I drove to an appointment that never was. Well, it is, but not until next Monday. Yes, I got the day wrong again. I do it all the time.
Yesterday was 9/11, I didn’t get the day wrong and I didn’t forget, I just thought that it was better to focus on something else on this dreadful anniversary and wait a few hours before writing down my thoughts.
So today is the day after 9/11.
For many that lost loved ones in the attack this would probably have been the day that they began to lose hope, began to feel the pain that will stay with them for the rest of their lives begin to grow. The emptiness, the panic, the fear, and all those other emotions that must have washed over them in waves as the horrible truth began to clarify out of their fading hope.
How awful that must have been, I have no idea how those wives, mothers, husbands, brothers, fathers, friends, must have felt the day after 9/11. I could try to imagine but really don’t want to - my imagination is very good.
Yes the day after 9/11 must have been a very bad day for those who were left behind.
As I drove towards my ‘not appointment’ I glanced out of the car window and saw a young father holding his young son out into the gutter so that he could walk and kick-up the leaves that were piled in the road. The boy couldn’t have been more than eighteen months old and both father and son were laughing. I could hear them even in the roaring wind, even through the closed car windows.
They were having such a good time, father and son playing together - playing together the day after 9/11.
Seeing those two so happy made me think of all those people who died that day and I wondered how may fathers played with their sons the day before 9/11, how many mothers went shopping for shoes with their daughters, how many brothers had a beer, how many sisters went to see a movie together.
The wind outside the car drew stronger, blowing up some leaves and lifting them into the air to fall to the ground below. It made me think about those that chose to jump rather than burn. I told you my imagination was good, or bad dependent on the imagining.
All those people.
If only they’d turned up a week too early - or better still a week too late.
Sharon Taylor commented on Facebook:
ReplyDeletenothing to add, you put it so eloquently
Emma Cholmondeley commented on Facebook.
ReplyDeleteEmma wrote "So many what if's for those poor families and friends who lost loved ones that day.......makes you think how lucky we are really ......but still I manage to tell Lauren to get out of my sight on a regular basis. I suppose we don't really know how blessed we are until it's gone.... Lovely post Andrew, really moving x"