After I finished vacuuming, I turned the sound up. It took a few minutes to piece together what had gone on.
I know no one will believe this, but I'm going to tell it anyway. I had laid down about 8 am my time, central time, because a few minutes earlier, I had such an overwhelming sadness and sense of despair. I felt as if the world had ended, or my heart had broken. I wrote down my feelings, and laid down and breathed deeply until I fell asleep.
At the time I felt those feelings, I attributed it to fatigue, not enough sleep, maybe "just a mood swing". I'd thought about calling my therapist at the time, but I really couldn't have explained why I felt that way.
I didn't make any assumptions or even think about that morning when I saw on television what had happened. Days later though, I wondered if maybe the worldwide horror was so great, so overwhelming, that not even knowing what had happened, maybe I felt it, because the world felt it.
Maybe it was coincidence. I don't know. It was lost in the horror of the things I saw on television, what we would all learn in the days and weeks to come.
Even today, 22 years later, I learn new things about that day. I learn of heroic acts done by everyday people, by office workers helping each other down the stairs to get out of the tower, about people sheltering strangers who couldn't get off Manhattan island that evening, about firemen and policemen and others running up the tower stairs to rescue anyone they could.
I learned about hospitals ready for hundreds of patients that never came. I am learning about first responders who today are still sick and still dying from the toxic fumes they inhaled, the toxins they were exposed to while searching for survivors, and to bring the deceased home to loved ones.
What I hope we can recover what we so desperately NEED right now, is how we all were on September 12, 2001 and the following weeks. We were kinder to each other, more patient, more compassionate.
So today, for the widows, orphans, the parents who lost children, for all who lost friends and loved ones, let us try and recapture the kindness, to honor the memory of all who perished.
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