In the Shadow of 9/11

I will never forget the day. I was on my usual travel from Escondido into San Diego down the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway. I am praising the Lord as I watch the sunrise over the ocean and the cliffs  actually excited about the possibilities of the day.  I felt good and I am sure I looked better than I had in years.  I was saved, sanctified and sober. A lovely day.

My friend Mark was at his usual place selling the Tribune in the middle of the road. I always did think that this was an odd place to put a stop sign. Waiting to move forward I see that his cheerful good morning face was not there. He was but I noticed, as I sat there some five cars back, his well weathered face  had a look of something that I did not really understand.

You have to understand that Mark started my day five out of seven days a week.  I knew his story and he knew mine. We were both working a program and sometimes, I have to admit, in the year 2001 it was still a struggle for me.  Mark was what I needed to keep me sober for just one more day.  We never had long conversations just the one or two minutes it took for me to buy a morning paper and be on my way. But that one or two minutes meant so much to me and I am sure to him as well.  It was as though it was a daily confirmation that we can do this.  That strange little white man made a tremendous difference in my life and I doubt seriously if he ever realized it.

 

This day, September 11, 2001, started off strange. It was the end of a summer quickly approaching fall. Something just felt different.  I did not realize it at the time but there was a great shift happening in the spirit realm. I ignored it and turned up the gospel music and praised a little louder.

When it was my turn at the stop sign Mark leaned in and whispered, “They are bombing New York.”  “What?” I said, “Ain’t nobody bombing New York.”  He had that look of serious so I paid attention.  It really was happening and I felt like I was on some kind of drug trip. Suddenly that familiar feeling at the pit of my stomach coupled with a kind of nervousness that I knew so well, from years of being in trouble or about to be, welled up.

An idiot man behind me honked and startled me. No excuses but my first instinct was to flip him off which I did with such exuberance that when I looked in my rear view mirror I knew he got the message to not mess with me.  Making my way to the freeway entrance, I switched on the radio. Sure enough they were bombing New York.  Terrorists had high jacked a passenger plane and flown it into a building in crowded New York City.  It was later in the day that heard that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon and yet another had crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I’m not sure if we weren’t all feeling a fear that we had never felt before. The crowded 101 was moving in slow motion. Not one car was moving faster than 15 miles per hour.  All of the cars that we passed day after day and never paid much attention to now contained real people, with real lives, with real fear etched across their faces.  We looked at each other. I mean we really looked at each other that particular morning.  It was other worldly.

I reached my place of employment in time to see on the television the second plane hit the tower. None of us that were crowded around that small television could speak.  We watched the news coverage silently and then the unthinkable happened.  The towers fell.  A silent scream bubble up in my throat. Before they knew how to edit I saw what I didn’t want to see. I saw lives tumbling from that building. Bodies and body parts mixed in with everyday stuff . It was horrible and it is an image that cannot be erased even after all of these years. 

It wasn’t as though I had never seen such atrocities in foreign lands played out on the most powerful of all mediums -  the television screen.  These things happened everyday in some part of the world. Even the Oklahoma bombing paled in comparison.  As twisted as it may be, the Oklahoma bombing was an inside job. But the World Trade Center?  These were foreign folks that crossed that imaginary boundary that said that this kind of terrorism could never ever happen on our shores.  This was America after all.  This was sacred and protected territory, right?  We could never be hurt or harmed by anyone other than ourselves. Amen?

But it happened and the Trade Center did fall and three thousand plus souls were lost. No matter the color, the creed or politics their lives were erased and we were helpless.  This is what scared most Americans the most on that day. We finally realized that we’re not invincible.

My way of looking at America changed.  I like so many stopped being naïve. This country is a mess. We have in-house issues that we have not been fully addressed….racism, poverty, homelessness, gentrification, senior health and welfare, police brutality, immigration….   We have the power to change things for the better here and we don’t exercise that power.  We are so busy blaming the legislators, the president, the powers that be. We blame the Mexicans and the black folks and the poor and the baby boomers.  We blame everybody for everything and we waste time doing it. This is exactly where those that are looking from the outside in want us to be.  We are terrorized and full of fear. We are much like the lost platoon that sees movement in the jungle and they end up killing each other.

I am an American. I could not survive as a Syrian or anyone oppressed and shut out in a Third World country.  Am I privileged? Far from it. Does not anything that is happening in this city, this community, this country affect me on a daily bases? Most assuredly and most deeply.  Each day I wake up and ask the Lord to show me what I can do today to make this a better place. Even if my job for today is to write this simple treatise in the shadow of 9/11. 

#oakager   #soulwriter 

Books by Debi Mason:

What I Thought Was So Just Ain't - Aging through God's Grace

Amazon.com (paperback)

Amazon.com (Kindle edition)

Barnes & Noble (paperback)

Barnes & Noble (NOOK edition)

ISBN-13: 978-0692236475

Release: June, 2014

Arizona Clay: A journey of self-discovery

Amazon.com (paperback)

Barnes & Noble (paperback)

ISBN-13: 9781606964880

Release: June, 2009

Follow me on Twitter:  @DebiOak