Yesterday, 9/11 . . . Marash Girl prays for the souls of the nearly 3,000 folks that were lost in the attack, and she gives her thanks to the Almighty that New York City eventually overcame the horror . . . that her son survived 9/11/2001, albeit after witnessing the second plane crash into the World Trade Center from the 38th floor of his office building at 388 Greenwich St., near the Holland tunnel entrance -- no supervisor in sight . . . He and his co-workers on the floor looked at each other, and without a word, walked towards the exit and down the 38 flights of stairs, not knowing what they were fleeing, what was awaiting them, where they would go . . . at first, trying to return home while most people, after exiting the office building, headed north immediately, he was not allowed south of the Brooklyn Bridge. So he walked north to a co-worker's place, just north of Canal Street and kept walking, never knowing what he was walking away from, what he was walking towards . . . he walked on, kept walking north, and survived to tell the horrendous tale.
Even after more than a decade, I find it difficult to get through each anniversary of that day.
ReplyDeleteThat was one day, DC, one moment, if you will. Now, consider the trauma felt by those in wartime, who are at the front, who are fighting, watching their best buddies mowed down, cut to pieces, the screaming, the blood, the agony, repeated, again, and again, day after day, if one survived. That describes fairly well the life of the US Marines fighting in the South Pacific, your deceased cousin, Charlie pambookian on the sands of Iwo Jima, the combatants all over the world, the civilians caught up in it, the countless days and moments suffered during genocide of the Armenians, the Jews, the Cambodians, the tribal genocides in Africa, the class warfare in communist Russia and China which claimed upwards of 120 million lives, and all this in just the past century. Surely, all creation groans under the the weight of the sin of man. Thank God, for you, it has been only that one moment, one day, and only that.
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