My friend Mel contacted me yesterday to say she got us a couple of tickets to enter the World Trade Center Memorial park when we go to New York City in mid-November. The tickets were made available just yesterday and she was amazed how she was able to obtain them as she did.
It seems surreal that during our next weekend trip to Manhattan, we are going to be visiting a place no one would have ever imagined into existence in their worst nightmares. Unless you live under a rock, the events of 9-11-01 represented a profoundly horrific time in contemporary American history. It is the date when America, as a whole, lost its innocence. Over three thousand people lost their lives in three separate plane crashes designed to punish America and its citizens for a whole lot of reasons many still do not fully understand. Just this past weekend marked the ten-year anniversary of 9-11; I didn't try to count how many television programs ran on Sunday to commemorate it. It just seemed like no matter what time of day or evening it was, there were at least four or five programs airing about 9-11. My hope is that we never ever forget what happened that day ten years ago...or ten hundred years from now.
What I know I will always remember and never forget was how the power of love overcame even the most henious form of evil on that day in mid-September, 2001. As people were pressed up against the windows of each firey WTC tower, there were those who decided to jump while holding hands with someone else. How is this last act not the ultimate expression of showing care, concern, and love for one's fellow human being? For all the first responders who went into each tower focused on saving lives rather than potentially losing their own. For all the dead we will never know about who spent their last moments comforting, praying with, and consoling someone else while waiting to die. And for all the survivors who still love today in spite of the tremendous and devastating personal loss(es) they suffered...
When I go to the WTC Memorial this coming November, I hope to come away with an even deeper understanding of what it means to love...to sacrifice...and to know who and what matters most during our brief time on this planet. Let's not trivialize "ever" what it means to be human, to love, and to have a bigger purpose in this life than we could ever imagine....
