never. never. forget.

11/11/11

even after ten years ...

 I watch the families tell their stories
 I hear the tapes of the last phone calls

I see the disaster of the twin towers

even after ten years

I am still glued to the television

and I still cry

I still meet a new person 

and hear a new story

that I hadn't heard before

This years story 
that went straight to my heart 

is Patrick Lyon's
he was not even born on 9/II 
but he lost his dad
a NYPD fireman

the letter that he wrote to the dad he never met
and read at the memorial


oh boy

my heart aches for the man he would

have been ... if he had only got to know his own dad

how different his life would be


he has had a good life
his mom loves him and even married a good man
that raised and took very good care of him


but it hits me to the core


to think how different Sam's life would be
without his dad

as emotional as I feel every September

I sometimes lose sight of the fact

that so many lives were changed so deeply

I think that I have been affected
i mean, i'm sad and i cry, 
i have to wait in long lines at the airport
my cousin is fighting in the war


but really ...
  

I'm in my safe space of the midwest

of course I was affected, but not to the extent 

that the course of my entire life was changed

I did not lose my husband, my son, my sister, my mom or my dad

but i do cry, every year, for those that did