Nearly Normal

Well Duh

I've been thinking about Mason a lot lately.  It's hard not to when someone you love has been taken from you so fast.  I've also been thinking about my sister and my niece who have lost a husband and a father.

In all this thinking I've come to the realization that the answer to your prayers may not be what you expected.  I had been praying for Mason to be well.  It turns out the answer to that prayer was that he died faster.  Not exactly what I asked for but what Mason needed.  Not what I wanted for my sister and niece but then they didn't have to spend months watching him die in uncontrollable pain.

A classic case of you can't always get what you want but rather what you need.

 

Mixed Feelings

Today is our 12th anniversary.  It is also the 10th anniversary of the breath taking horror that was inflicted upon our country.

I remember that day so clearly.  A phone call that woke us up.  I thought it was my mother-in-law, having forgotten the time change, calling from Cleveland to wish us happy anniversary.  Instead it was one of our neighbors saying turn on the tv.  I turned it on just in time to see the first tower collapse.

I had spent 2 1/2 years commuting to New York for work.  The office was a few short blocks from the Trade Center and the hotel where I frequently stayed was at the base of the towers.  I'd been to Windows on the World for dinner.  I couldn't help but think of my friends were they caught in the chaos and the wonderful staff at the hotel who were so pleasant when I'd drag myself into the lobby at midnight having just flown across the country.  What about the delightful people at the Japanese restaurant who made me and my book feel like we were part of the place.  All those people in the underground shopping area, the PATH train station that emptied into the towers.  All those people in the towers.  All those people.

It was a day spent glued to the tv because I couldn't look away I couldn't disrespect the people who had died and the survivors by looking away.

Today it's been 10 years.  How our world has changed.  There are children who've only known a world in which we are at war, of heightened security, of their parents being hyper vigilant about their safety.

Let us never forget.