This morning many people are having their own thoughts and memories of 911. For me, I have come to the conclusion that there are some moments in our lives, and in our world, that are so life changing (both good or bad), or horrific, or shockingly mind- numbing, that they become moments that are frozen in time.
On a personal level…we all have such moments such as the death of a loved one, a divorce, an experience of violence, maybe a long anticipated birth, a reunion of relationship thought forever lost to us, an accident, a buried memory that has suddenly come to the surface; these all can be classified in our minds as, a before and after moment. It is a moment when time is frozen and we acknowledge that our lives will never be the same; for better or worse.
As a society, when something like the space shuttle Challenger explodes, or a President (John F. Kennedy) is assignated, an icon dies in a shocking way, war breaks out, a huge natural or man made disaster happens to a community, or terrorism like 911 comes knocking down the door of the innocent with brutal strength and power; it devastates not only the morale of an individual; it attacks the personal concept of safety and innocence of not only a nation; but, it has the ability to impact the world. We once again have a moment in time that is frozen into a before and an after 911. We are never the same in the after moments, as we were in the before.
We observe it, acknowledge it, we grieve it, we resent it, we write about it, and we cope with it. The experience is never to be forgotten and nor are those who have been intimately affected by the loss of life, of the loss of a future with those that they love…nor the impact of losing those innocent people who just happened to be in the very center of a destructive decision, made by those who have been indoctrinated by hate and a desire to control the fate of others. We must learn from these moments…we must somehow bridge the gap of hatred so that every person’s humaness can be seen, appreciated, respected and valued, as we value our own. These frozen moments in time must not freeze our hearts and minds…or the enemy wins!
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I really appreciated and connected with your article. Having been a foster parent for 10 years parenting girls between the ages of 16 and 18, I agree with everything you have said plus more. The statistics show that over 80% of our prisoners were ex-foster children. Not to mention how many girls have become mothers and and now living on welfare. It is people like you that can help raise awareness of the problems so many kids face when they are emancipated at the age of 18 and do not have the schooling, training or skills to make it in a very tough world. Our birth children our not ready to be on their own at 18, yet our system emancipate foster children at 18 with no support. They are set up to fail. Keep up the good work Rainy.
Kathy
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