86 Come Together

Looks like I wrote this on 9/11/2011.  What a shame I left it in Edit mode until now.  Honestly, I forgot about it.  (Sigh.)  Like so many areas of my life, things are undone.  Incomplete.


Today is the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.

I remember being at work that morning, how I was on the phone with a local vendor and she commented that a plane had just flown into one of the Twin Towers in New York.  I speculated that it must have been an accident.  She didn't think so.  Then the second plane hit and the surrealism of the day ramped up.  I remember the small television that was brought into the conference room and left to play news throughout the day -- how we'd check in now and then to learn the latest horrifying tidbits and how the newscasters could only speculate since the facts were largely unknown.  Once we Americans realized we had been attacked by terrorists, we responded like a nest of angry hornets.

I remember being in traffic at a light and seeing the firemen passing the boot to collect for the victims of 9/11, and how I started to weep in my car at the powerful unity this represented.  I was in Texas and we were collecting donations for New York.  The desire to render aid reached every corner of the country.

Right now in the nearby town of Bastrop, TX people are still fighting a massive wildfire that began last weekend over the Labor Day holiday.  So far the fire is 50 percent contained.  It has destroyed over 34,000 acres and more than 1,550 homes.  I feel pride in our local community as people are coming together to help the victims of the fire.  There have been fundraisers and collections of useful items at my workplace and my son's school.  I saw a collection bin at my nearest Starbucks and my favorite radio station regularly gives out websites and names of organizations that can help.  I know of at least one family who is hosting fire evacuees and several others who are working to find shelter for horses and family pets affected by the fire.

I've seen people write about how Americans come together in times of trouble.  I think this sentiment is a bit limiting.

I think it's PEOPLE who come together in times of trouble.

I don't believe that this level of compassion and kindness rests solely with my country or with the culture around me.  It also doesn't extend only to natural disasters or acts of terrorism.  I've seen this compassion before.  It rose all around me when I had cancer.  It rises again each time another sister joins the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls.  It rises when somebody needs help and when somebody else is in a position to give that help.

I wish we could keep the unity and the love for fellow humans flowing like this all the time.  That will never happen, but I wish for it just the same.

The wonderful folk duo Trout Fishing in America has a song I adore titled No Matter What Goes Right.  This is the chorus:

No matter what goes right
I will still be loving you
No matter what goes right
I will stand by you

When couple fight their troubles
It unites their hearts
When the good times roll
They can drift apart

I'll still be loving you
No matter what goes right

So here's to remembering the heroism and the losses that are part of 9/11/2001 . . .
Here's to fighting the fire in Bastrop and rebuilding . . .
Here's to fighting all manner of illness and disease and finding more ways to prevent and control the threats to health . . .
And here's to unity of purpose to of loving our neighbors as ourselves, of working towards the greater good, even when there are no cancer, no floods, no fires, no tsunamis, no hurricanes, and no attacks to bring us together . . . 

We humans have caused terrible damage and accomplished amazing things by working together.  We won't know what true peace on any part of earth means until we learn to love each other no matter what goes right.  It seems we are destined to continue fumbling along, tearing down and rebuilding.  You know the energy that pours into helping each other is not sustainable.  You give and you help and then you need time to recharge.

Perhaps -- just perhaps -- if more people carried the thread of working towards a greater good and held that sentiment more dear than "take care of me and my own before all others" then this world would be a nicer place to live.  In the meantime, no matter what goes wrong or right, I'll focus on loving my husband and child and helping others when and where I can.

Angela