Sky of Blackness and Sorrow

I've watched this anniversary date approach for weeks, knowing that words are never enough. It's a hole on the calendar, about the size of the hole in my heart. It doesn't hurt less knowing so many of us ache for the same reason. Twenty-three years on, recalling the events of 11 September 2001 doesn't diminish the pain of remembrance.

Four planes, people whose lives were suddenly and horribly ended in the air and on the ground, three buildings- two totally destroyed, the other deeply scarred, and a Pennsylvania field forever transformed into a memorial. And all these years later, the sharp edge of regret and loss may have dulled slightly, as time has worn it down, but the hurt gets worse as the heart gets harder.

New York’s World Trade Center, WTC, towered over 'The City' as a presence, more felt than seen. Manhattan looked to the WTC the way the fingers on the hand looked to the thumb. 

The destruction was no less real at the Pentagon, in Washington, D. C., where so many in and out of uniform who served America and worked to preserve her peace had war visited upon them, without warning or reason. 

Nor was the devastation across a Pennsylvanian hillside less painful or complete where, for weeks and months afterward, no blade of grass grew, and no bird flew. All we felt was a raw ache.

We seemed to listen more carefully to one another, at least for a time afterward. We spoke to each other instead of at each other. Having witnessed how frail and fragile life could be, it seemed we had resolved to see past and through the political differences, find the essentials, and seek common ground. 

And then tomorrow and tomorrow and that well-known petty pace crept in, and we found ourselves standing together at anniversary remembrances of today, but not as close as we had stood the year previous.

Slowly, we chose a return to a country that always seems to involve blaming and shaming, shouting and pointing, pushing and shoving, posturing and pouting, until here we are, so many years older but no wiser.

Many have forgotten, or choose to forget, that we have always been where everyone else on earth has wanted to be. No one seeking to come here has ever thought we were perfect, but believe we allow everyone and anyone the opportunity to dream and to become their dream.

We were the nation with open hearts and open minds, who rolled up a sleeve to help a neighbor or someone we'd not yet met halfway across the world; who looked you squarely in the eye and whether we agreed or not, always let you speak your mind and tell us your heart.

Some see today as a national day of service. That is a path worth exploring as we can still use a lot of help even if we're not sure how to ask for it. We can start on a return to being the greatest nation on earth everyone else continues to believe we are and to be the Americans that everyone else sees when they look to us.

We could get along better, maybe by muddling along together, by rediscovering the beliefs and values that bring and keep us together, making us who we are, and seeing how that goes. And perhaps we could begin to do all of that today. 
-bill kenny