Thirteen Years.
Can it really be thirteen years? How is that possible? That time can slip past us, all the time noticed, marked, remembered, honored and yet... invisible.
I haven't posted to this journal for eight years.
How much have I forgotten about that day? How much have I remembered that I had once forgotten? Memory is a fragile, transient thing. The pancakes I ate today at our local diner taste the same as they did then. Our friends still meet there, mostly on happy occasions now. Our faces are all older. Our hair grey, or thinner, or gone. Did we really go to the beach after? Was the sky so very blue? Yes. Yes. Were my brother and sister-in-law really in the dark? No. They had heard about the first plane, but didn't get to see how bad it really was, didn't know the full story. My niece, appearing in my memory as a diaper clad toddler, is a junior in high school, a field hockey star, beautiful as any 16 year old, tall and lithe and full of all the hope and optimism that comes with youth, health, opportunity. Yet she isn't innocent like she was then. She knows. Everyone knows what can happen. No one talks about it. No one wants to acknowledge it. Like that slightly irregular mole on your shoulder, or the new lump under your armpit, or the occasional tingling in your left hand... best not to look too closely. Best not to think about it. Surely all will be well. Surely. If we just leave it alone, shut it away, close our eyes, surely all will be well.
Surely.
I didn't think I'd be this bitter. This disappointed.
I haven't posted to this journal for eight years.
How much have I forgotten about that day? How much have I remembered that I had once forgotten? Memory is a fragile, transient thing. The pancakes I ate today at our local diner taste the same as they did then. Our friends still meet there, mostly on happy occasions now. Our faces are all older. Our hair grey, or thinner, or gone. Did we really go to the beach after? Was the sky so very blue? Yes. Yes. Were my brother and sister-in-law really in the dark? No. They had heard about the first plane, but didn't get to see how bad it really was, didn't know the full story. My niece, appearing in my memory as a diaper clad toddler, is a junior in high school, a field hockey star, beautiful as any 16 year old, tall and lithe and full of all the hope and optimism that comes with youth, health, opportunity. Yet she isn't innocent like she was then. She knows. Everyone knows what can happen. No one talks about it. No one wants to acknowledge it. Like that slightly irregular mole on your shoulder, or the new lump under your armpit, or the occasional tingling in your left hand... best not to look too closely. Best not to think about it. Surely all will be well. Surely. If we just leave it alone, shut it away, close our eyes, surely all will be well.
Surely.
I didn't think I'd be this bitter. This disappointed.