We're Still Building and Burning Down Love

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I hopped on the bus this morning, and looked back out the window and realized how gray and dreary a day it was. This is the first time in 6 years that September 11 was a rainy day. I remember how beautiful the sky was on September 11, 2001. I was late for work and left my apartment hearing that a plane might have crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings in NYC.

The sky was azure with no clouds in the sky, and they had been in the subsequent years.

I always feel melancholy on this remembrance day. I wasn't immediately impacted; I was spared losing someone I love. Though, I have many friends and acquaintances who did lose best friends, co-workers, lovers, sons... For example, one of my favorite people in the world lost good friends from her TJX Companies days on Boston based flights. I can only be empathic to their losses.

In Leon Uris' book Redemption, his main character Rory Larkin says, after losing his dear mates at the snafu in Gallipoli, "All men have a measure of cowardice in them. I learned that love of one's mates can overcome your fears. I learned that every survivor of this horror must try to live a good life because he lives for many men."

I read Redemption in 1995, after my Leon Uris run of Exodus, The Hajj and Trinity. I was moved by this line, and on September 11, 2001, it became even more moving and poignant. I feel this quote demands us to carry the obligation of being the force of change in the world. For Johnnie Doctor, Jr., Alberto Dominguez, Rodney Dickens, Dorothy Alma DeAraujo, Joseph Angelini Jr. and for everyone else who lost his or her life, we need to carry out the good in world that they aren't here to do.

During the weeks after the attacks, I found myself listing to albums from my middle school-high school years. The nostalgia soothed me and just made me feel better. Very heavy in the rotation were: U2's Joshua Tree, Sting's The Soul Cages and Madonna's Immaculate Collection (only for "Life to Tell.") So, for me, what better tribute could there be for the loved ones of those who lost their lives in the September 11 attacks, then U2 singing "Where the Streets Have No Name" in front of the roll call of all the lives from whom we all must now live?



In paradisum deducant vos Angeli; in vostro adventu suscipiant vos martyres, et perducant vos in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem. Chorus angelorum vos suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeatis requiem.

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