Ten Years

From a journal entry - September 11, 2011

I didn't feel it coming. But as the stewardess proffering snacks made her way down the aisle and I put my earbuds in - hearing the last few lines of the Brooklyn Children's Chorus: "O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave / O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" my chest heaved and hot tears were suddenly running down my cheeks. Aware that there was no Kleenex box nearby, I tried to contain myself. What does this mean to me anyway? My 11 year-old self was asleep under my favorite plaid comforter at 8:46am on September 11, 2001, not in New York or even the United States. I was waked by my sister shaking me with the news, and spent the next few days following the dumbstruck lead of adults around me. Now, my 21 year-old self sits on a plane watching a line of people several hundred long waiting to read the names of the dead. Is it for them that I cry? Or am I still just following the cues of adults around me? I glance at the man next to me who is watching the proceedings casually (he looks like he wants some popcorn) - no, it's not that.

I mute the sound and put on music; stare out the window and try to collect my thoughts. I feel mixed-up and muddled; I glance back at the lips of the woman reading a loved one's name and the tears come again. I realize suddenly that I am not weeping for the dead ones, but for the living ones. The ones left to ask "why?" every day; to fight against hatred; to spend a lifetime mourning. They look so lost...they are so lost.