Posted by shar on September 11, 2006, at 18:10:35
This is the blog I wrote. I remember when I learned about it, my sis called and told me. I've been crying all day today. It's all too sad. So...in memoriam here is my lame blog about 9-11 one year after:
They are at ground zero, which is like a big pit. On the stage are two podiums, at the podiums people are reading names--the name of every person that was lost in the World Trade Center attack, YoYo Ma plays in the background.
The readers are in pairs, and each reads a short list of names at a podium, then the camera moves to the next pair, the readers are famous and not famous, celebrities, statesmen, stateswomen, citizens, family members of those who were lost to the attack. No readers break down, a few readers are holding up pictures. In one pair, a big man has his arm around the woman who is reading, and she is sort of leaning against him. He is at least a head taller than she. It is very windy, and her hair is blowing all around and in her face, but she doesn't reach up to catch it or smooth it. She reads first, two names. He reads a name, then whispers to her (you can just hear it in the microphone) "just read one name." She seems nervous and filled with grief. I'm glad she had such a sensitive partner with her up there on stage.The wind is so strong, blowing hard on everyone and everything, into the microphones with a low growl, in the crowd people are covering their eyes and noses, the dust is thick in the wind. A flautist plays 'Danny Boy' and is having terrible trouble with the wind affecting her flute (in instruments like that, wind can blow across or into the opening and change or wash out the sound; it happens with recorders, too, like they play in early music concerts). The national anthem is played on strings.
At the very end, a bugler plays taps, on a real bugle which I understand is one of the most difficult of all instruments to play.
The names are incredible. The show I am watching is showing the name and city/state of origin of the person as it is read, sort of like a subtitle. The dead are from many different countries, but mainly the U.S., and names represent ethnicities from all over the world. I wonder if the people from Missouri, California, Texas, England, and other places were just caught there, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There are some sets of names with unusual surnames, multiple ones. I wonder if these represent a family that was killed, and am impressed that what is horrible is capable of being made even worse. Losing one in a family is too terrible...losing more...unthinkable. Nature, god, life, striking in their ability to devastate the living.
At the Pentagon is a more formal "service" with high government officials, including President Bush, the First Lady, and former President Bush and Mrs. Bush. Prayers. Toward the end, a singer begins "God Bless America" and the First Lady begins to sing then stops, she looks a bit sheepish. She is waving her small flag in time with the music. Then after the first run through, an announcer says "please join us in singing God Bless America."
The First Lady sings along. She has noticed that others on the dais are not waving their flags, some are just holding them up, some aren't even doing that. They are proper (with quotes). I like her instincts. I like her instinct to join in the song, her plain pleasure in joining by waving her flag. She seems very human and warm to me.
Several days ago I watched a show about 63 babies. The 63 babies born after the towers fell. Babies born without fathers, because their fathers died in the attack. There is one set of twins. The moms and babies are together in what looks like an atrium or sunroom, very open and bright. There are tables, and a buffet. The moms are so different. Some still shaky with grief, some stronger with a getting-on-with-it attitude that is angry, desolate, and serene. Some of the moms have other children, too, some of the babies are onlies. The oldest is almost walking, the youngest a few weeks old.
At the end, they attempt a group picture with the babies in car seats draped with white cloth (maybe to make a better backdrop), and no moms. As babies are, it is funny because there is always at least one climbing out and on the way to somewhere else, and mom has to move in quick to put him or her back in place. I never saw the finished portrait.A year ago, I was sitting on my sofa, doing paperwork (was that a lifetime ago?), no TV or radio, and my sister called and told me about the WTC attack. I kept saying no, no. I turned on the TV, and we shared our shock and horror and disbelief, our helplessness, our questions of what did this portend. I am glad that I heard it from her, and that she called.
I was comforted talking with my sweetheart, he had thoughts, information, ideas. Talking with him made it feel like there was going to be a future.
Well, prayers to the survivors of the attacks, prayers to the families of the dead and missing. The dead are at peace, in a better place, maybe even some of them in doggy heaven--in which case Scruffles is there to comfort anyone who needs it for as long as they need it. Scruffles is magical and will heal a broken heart or spirit, by exuding such joy that her light dissipates the shadows.
So, now I will go and listen to the rest of the names. They are at the P's.
Now (later) it's late night, 11:20 pm, I have cried a lot today. And then cried some more. There is too much loss.
Finally, I fell asleep.
poster:shar
thread:685093
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/grief/20051017/msgs/685093.html