May We Never Forget

[newsgirl920]

It was sunny and the sky was clear. That was what was so strange about it, six years ago. I was sitting in my "office," which at the time was literally a production studio about the size of a closet, and the TV over my head was on, but muted, as I scanned the newspaper and the wire and worked out a game plan for the stories of the day. I just

Comments

determined

[cloudpic]

Thank you, Becky, for your story. Not just sad, but determined.

I remember once sitting and listening to my Grandma and mom and her sister talking about how sad it was that my brother and I and cousins would never know a world without the nightmare of nuclear war hanging over us. This was early 50's... post WWII (though that was horribly real for them, no family was left without loss in our nation), the bombs had fallen and the horror of the spread of those weapons had begun. I'm so sorry your generation has had to feel the same sort of grief for your children.

Seems always there are new lessons to be learned. Thank goodness we seem not to give up that determination to learn!

Re: determined

[newsgirl920]

It's interesting how people are so resilient. And wonderfully beautiful. I wrote this already once today (in the Rooftop Garden, actually), but it seems appropriate here to say again that the one thing left over when Pandora's Box was opened was Hope. If we can cling to nothing else, we have that -- and we have each other -- and we have the lessons that we've learned.

[eileenonline]

Oh Becky I was just being bold enough to post mine, and I read yours, and now I feel like a jerk! Yours is so beautiful and mine is so cynical... I love what you wrote about Sam... whenever I receive a new file for a case, I check the D.O.B. and I always think "after 9/11." I am really thinking, they won't know what it was like. Interesting.

[newsgirl920]

You know, hubby and I were talking about this the other day. That next year's kindergarten class -- the class including Sam -- will be the first of mostly post-9/11 babies. And so many boys among them, at least here -- all the kids who are Sam's age at church are boys, a group of about six of them.

Don't worry about being cynical! We all have to process our grief and even anger in our own ways, and there's no right way. It's taken me a long time not to be cynical anymore. Not sure why, really. Except that I am really an eternal optimist. Actually, it's not 9/11 itself that I'm cynical about -- it's the Army's changing function as a result and what it did to my family. But THAT is a totally different story!

I was actually thinking of you this morning when I wrote it -- thinking how my day on 9/11 must have been nothing compared to yours. I'm sure you must have been touched by the events, but I'm hoping not in too personal a way.

[eileenonline]

Optimism vs. cynicism. I like to think that I am a realist to the point that I have to be optimistic. That is how I would describe myself if I was forced. I am so aware of the bazillion things that can go wrong at any moment, that I just have to hope for the best. Therefore, for the most part, I present as an optimist. But if I am in a bad mood forget, I will turn cynical. I don't like to be cynical in group though. I will always rise to be the optimist if I am with others. Ah, I am just confusing myself and everyone else- but do you know what I mean- so realistic that the only thing to do is think positive? It's the last hope really.