September 11, 2001

The silent sky is now slowly coming back to life as the planes fly overhead. I can't help but feel uneasy whenever I see one of them. I never thought of an airplane as a weapon before.. except maybe the airplanes that are used by the military ... but not these airplanes. They usually fly by so calmly. But now .. it feels strange to hear the sounds of their engines...even though they don't sound like those planes did that day when they crashed into the buildings. Those airplanes sounded different that day... they sounded frightening.. and I only heard them on the tv. It makes me wonder what they sounded like to the people on the ground that witnessed the planes crashing into the buildings.

The shock has mostly turned to sadness and flags are flying everywhere. But all the flags in the world won't change what has happened. It's easy to think of revenge.. as if it will somehow erase the crime. But all we can do is try to stop the evil from striking again.

So easy to ask how something like this could happen. So easy to feel like a victim even though I am so far away from the devastation. But it hurts me even though I wasn't there and I haven't lost. The images flood the tv screens to haunt me... all those people.. helpless.. their faces in the windows. Then there were those that just gave up. My heart and soul aches to see those poor frightened people ... knowing that they cannot escape the horror. The monster who did this will suffer forever but, for now, we are the ones suffering.

It's not as if we are the only ones attacked by this kind of thing.. other people see this every day.. war is a close companion to their everyday lives. It's just that this attack was so cruel. So many innocent people trapped..knowing that there was only one way out. Words cannot describe the anger and sadness I feel when I think of what those people must have gone through... and what their families and friends are going through now. My heart aches to think of the pain they must be going through.

Even now the work continues as an army of volunteers sift through the wreckage.. somehow hoping for one sign of life in a mountain of death. I've heard some of them on tv.. talking about the nightmare they are living ... hauling buckets of human remains out of the wreckage. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to do what they are having to do... still they don't complain.. they just keep digging and hoping.

While the rest of us watch, pray, and do whatever we can to show our support and give whatever we can to those who have lost, those who have been hurt, those who are still digging through the wreckage and those who are still hoping.

One day this will all be a memory... but the scars will always remain.


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Special thanks to Spirit of the Dove for the picture used on this page.