Today marks an important milestone for our nation as we honor the tenth anniversary of a very difficult day. Today marks an important milestone for me as I honor my son's absence for six months to the day. I reflected on the heaviness of today while driving home from church. I envisioned the twisted and scorched rubble that remained just hours after two magnificent towers stood in the morning sunshine. I was in those towers just six months before they fell and I felt just as much awe standing at their feet looking up as I did standing on their top looking down. The loss of their beauty pales in comparison to the loss of life, hope and security all Americans felt that day. Fear crept in and has lingered ever since. The rubble of that devastation was long cleared away but the memories remain.
I too fell, six months ago I crumbled for the second time. I hadn't even finished rebuilding from our first devastation before the second and most unthinkable struck again. For the past ten years there has been talk and action about how and what to do to remember what happened on that fateful day. How to memorialize those who fell and the spectacular that rose to service of man and country. I don't believe that answer lies in a building, memorial or any tangible piece of anything. It is contained in the hearts of all those who remember and who share their memories. Wyatt and Eli didn't die the day that their bodies did. They live on in my husband's and my heart and thanks to our memories and words Wyatt, who was born before any of his sisters, lives on in their hearts. Eli's memory lives in all of our hearts and so long as we don't let go they always will. Twisted and scorched rubble can yield beautiful things in spite of unbearable, indescribable loss. Rebuilding in the shadow of grief is accomplished one person at a time and the memorial we each create is irreplaceable.
Ten years later I see a nation that was brought to its knees. A nation that would not stay bent down. A nation that stumbled along the way. A nation that is still trying to find its way. Yet a nation that remembers the immense sacrifices and pain which stitch it together and make it whole.
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