New York's Big Loss

September 11, 2009, eight years after the day we will never forget. I attend a memorial service on campus. I watch the live stream on my computer, listen to the names being read, in the rain and wind of this stormy day. Eight years but it seems like only yesterday. The observances are important, to bring us back, to remember the lost souls, to listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter sing "Grand Central Station" and "In my Heaven".

Lives were lost for no reason, good or otherwise. New York lost something too. The energy, the flash, the wisdom and the hope. I always knew north and south when I was in Manhattan, before the buildings fell. I could just look around, up to the sky, and there they were. Two very tall boxes all shiny in the sun. I knew that was south, unless I was at the seaport. Now I need my compass.

I stood on the top of one of the towers when it was first built and open. I took my son there so we could see all of Manhattan and beyond. Many years later, my son was nearby when the towers fell. Thankfully, miraculously, gratefully, he could run from the billowing smoke, not be one of those buried beneath the ash. Two very real memories. There was the sunshine, there was the hope, there was the pile. So sad.