September 11, 2007
Like The Dead Unremebered~A Tribute to the Fallen of 9-11-2001
Psalm 31
Father,
I put my life in Your hands.
Father,
I put my life in Your hands.
In You, Oh Lord, I take refuge
Let me never be put to shame.
Into Your Hands I commend my spirit
You will redeem me
Faithful God
Father,
I put my life in Your hands.
For all my foes reproach me
Neighbors laugh and friends stand off
I am forgotten
like Dead unremembered
I am like waste cast out
Father,
I put my life in your hands.
But my trust is in You
O Lord
I say You are my God
Into Your hands
I place my future
From the clutch of foes
You rescue me
Precious Burden
Father
I put my life in Your hands
Let Your face
shine on your servant
O save me in Your Love
Be stouthearted
and come,take courage
all of you
who trust The Lord
Father,
I put my life in Your hands
Father,
I put my life in Your hands...
Again it comes, for the sixth time now — 2,191 days after that awful morning — falling for the first time on a Tuesday, the same day of the week.
Again there will be the public tributes, the tightly scripted memorial events, the reflex news coverage, the souvenir peddlers.
Is all of it necessary, at the same decibel level — still?
Each year, murmuring about Sept. 11 fatigue arises, a weariness of reliving a day that everyone wishes had never happened. It began before the first anniversary of the terrorist attack. By now, though, many people feel that the collective commemorations, publicly staged, are excessive and vacant, even annoying.
“I may sound callous, but doesn’t grieving have a shelf life?” said Charlene Correia, 57, a nursing supervisor from Acushnet, Mass. “We’re very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let’s wind it down.”
Some people prefer to see things condensed to perhaps a moment of silence that morning and an end to the rituals like the long recitation of the names of the dead at ground zero.
NR Kleinfield, columnist
New York Times
Click here to read the entire Commentary
Hard to believe, isn't it... Where were you that horrible day? Can you remember what you were doing? Did you get a call from a friend saying "For Heaven's sake turn on the TV!" Or like myself who sat in my car listening to the news and thought, "they must be playing excerpts of the new "
Left Behind" book, how careless of them to not say that this is a dramatization, we will have another "War of the Worlds" hysteria...then hearing some official say that all of the flights had been canceled and then another official, a friend from church, who was at that time the second in command at the Sheriffs Dept come on and talk about "No other known attacks..." I realized that this was not a radio play... I ran into the house and got Woody out of bed yelling "that we had been attacked like Pearl Harbor..." Which of course, we had been.
"Does grieving have a shelf life?" Perhaps it does. The Welsh and I think the Irish say "For every grief the ointment of time..." I know that many of my life's griefs have eased with the passing of time, even the death of my Mother less than a year ago has become less painful as time has gone on...
However one has to ask oneself, has the grief eased for...
The children who lost parents
The husbands who lost wives and the wives that lost husbands
Leaping Woman
How about the parents of this woman? She was identified recently, and was the only daughter of a couple...How would you feel if you knew that your daughter leaped to her death 80 stories, how long would it take for your grief to "ease"
How about Anger? Anger every time you see the gaping wound of a hole in the ground that is Ground Zero? Every time you are subjected to useless and humiliating searches at air terminals. Every time you see on TV yet another attempt by an islamofacist to hurt more Americans, more human beings! Anger is akin to grief... does it have a shelf life?
With all respect to Mr Kleinfield, who was only reporting a national discussion, I wonder about the tone and the timing of this piece. With the elections looming and the discussions regarding the war in Iraq this month, I have wondered if the more liberal "Hate America" crowd just want to see 9-11 get lost in a shuffle. New York City officials were scaling back the services and moving them away from the site of this national calamity at the behest of people that would like to see this go away. The islamists are having a huge parade on September 9th, near Ground Zero, and no one is talking about them toning down or moving their celebration as tasteless as it is. Because after all, "the living have to go on..."
Quite right. The living do have to go on. But like so many things, human emotions are not on a timetable, they dont have a "shelf life". In failing to recognize this our society has fallen into a state of "Grief Lite". People are just expected to "Get over" any of life's traumas as instantly as a character on TV. No allowance is made for how we are all so different and have different needs. The shock, the horror and certainly the manner of the deaths of the 2996 people on that Tuesday morning, I am sure has made the grief that much deeper.
My father,on his deathbed asked my mother "if she would forget him..." It was his firm belief, and mine as well, that love remembered never dies. I too feel that if you are remembered, you never completely die in this world...
Has it been long enough? Taps is sounded daily for those 53,000 men (and one woman) that died at Gettysburg. The ships bell is sounded over the Arizona, in Pearl Harbor to honor the nearly three thousand that died that December morn, 66 years ago, and to honor the dead that are interred daily into the belly of that broken battle ship. For if you are a Pearl Harbor survivor you ashes may be placed alongside your comrades at arms that died or now rest there...
Has it been long enough? Hour after hour, a lone soldier marches 21 steps forward, stops and counts to twenty one, then turns 45 degrees, stops, counts to 21, turns 45 degrees, stops counts to 21, then marches forward 21 steps, stops...in precise motions rain or shine day and night without ceasing before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Has it been long enough? A flame burns at the grave site of the fallen John F Kennedy. His brother rests across the way, no flame, but there are always flowers laid there on the little hill. The People still gather at the grave of Martin Luther King Jr... hasnt it been long enough? Should that flame be allowed to go out, and the memories be allowed to fade?....
When we stop looking at the photos of the falling towers, when we stop reciting the names of the dead, when we cease to grieve at the site of the calamity, when we give up hope of righting the wrongs...we have lost an essential part of ourselves and who we are as Americans, who share the communal experience of 9-11...
Let us look hard at the hole in the ground that is what is left of the World Trade Center. Let us grieve for our honored dead. Let us stand strong against the Evil that perpetrated this outrage against our nation, and let us never forget the events of 9-11-2001, not now, not ever...
