September 11, 2001 ~ Never Forget
In Honor of those who died on September 11, 2001
It was mid-March of 2002. I had just returned from a speaking trip and there was a pile of mail on my desk. At the very bottom of it, the familiar large white manila envelope from my investment adviser at Prudential. As I started to open the envelope, my eyes fell on the postmark. It was dated September 11, 2001. Since I was living in Hawaii, and since planes and ships weren’t allowed to land there till about September 22, the whole mail system was clogged. We were getting FedEx, UPS and Post Office mail sporadically for six months afterward.
As I held the envelope, I felt chills down my back. Was the team who prepared this still alive? Was the person who mailed this alive because he/she ran down to the mailroom on the first floor to get it in the mail? It was an eerie feeling holding one of the last pieces of mail sent from the burning towers.
I still have that envelope ferreted away somewhere. I supposed the executor of my estate (hopefully 40+ years from now) will come across it buried deep in a box of memories. Since I couldn’t find it, I made a photoshopped version of a postmark (above) just to feel that reality check once again. If I ever locate it, I’ll change out the image with the real one.
There are many world events that give us a reality check. We certainly are not the first country to have been attacked by
terrorists. And it wasn’t the first attack on the US (December 7, 1941 ring a bell?) More people die in car accidents every year than died on that fateful day. But the sheer shock of it, and the reminder that the world is not made up of fairy dust and unicorns was a wake up call for many people.
It would be nice if that old Coke Commercial by the Hilltop singers (recently brought back by the TV Show Madmen) could be true. September 11, 2001 and many September 11’s following it have shown that to be a far off dream. Why? Because, well, other humans are involved and some of those other humans don’t share our fondness for Liberty, Democracy, Peace and Freedom.
Take a moment today and remember.
Live your dreams, be happy.
The world is not sane, but you can be.
Blessings,
Thanks for the different perspective. Remember and move forward. I just wish we could still be as nice as we were to each other in the aftermath.
Thanks Vickie! So sorry it took so long for you to comment. This is a new blog an there were some hiccups on the Comments. All fixed.
Yes – wouldn’t it be nice if people weren’t so thin-skinned these days? Why be so easily offended? It takes so much work to be offended!!
Have a wonderful week,
Beth