Steve Kurtz
Oct 7th, 2001, 08:50 AM
...which is when I usually do the bulk of my better thinking.
It's been almost a month. A month since our senses were brutally taken by the throat and shaken til we were blue in the face. A month since an unfathomable number of innocents were led, like sheep, to the slaughter. A month since those of us who were left to try and make what little sense you can make out of such an atrocity, were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take emotional inventory and discover what really matters. A month since we were forced to suddenly and violently bid goodbye to so many of our loved ones, so many of our fellow travelers on this bittersweet journey.
What has it meant? Well, for starters, it's meant that our time is indeed measured in short increments. Some of us live to be 80 or beyond. Some of never make it from the womb. And some of us, like you and me, get one chance after another, and hopefully we learn that for every night spent doin' what we wanna do, someone else is doing what they have no say in doing. Suffering, slaving, and dying. For me, this whole tragedy has been a lesson in freedom and democracy. I will never again take for granted my inalienable right to step out my door and make my own decisions. I will never again treat another like I will naturally see them again. It doesn't work that way. Not anymore it doesn't.
I've always marveled at how, on a universal scale, we just don't get it when it comes to recognizing the miracle of life. The miracle of what it takes to create it. And how obscenely cruel it is to take it. And obscenely unfair. But, if I've learned anything, be it in the last month or in the last forty years, it is these two things...Sh*t Happens and Life's Not Fair. I don't mean that to be humorous or crass. I mean them to be the two things you must understand before you proceed with steps 2 thru whatever. Therefore, I have learned that it isn't enough to just like somebody anymore. You have to love them. You have to realize that, so they pissed you off by not returning something on time, or weren't there when you needed them. You have to love them. All we need is love.
It's been a month since we realized that the flame of life can be snuffed out like the flame of a candle...that quickly and that permanently. It's how we appreciate the flame, while it burns, that determines whether or not it's heat and light can be enough to sustain us, and not just provide us momentary comfort. Out of the darkness....
There is a mountain of rubble and debris and wreckage in NYC and in Washington still.
That's nothing compared to the mountain of rubble and debris and wreckage in our hearts.
But, like those tireless workers in both of those shell-shocked cities are discovering, that wreckage can and will be carefully disposed of. The hopes and dreams and love of those buried beneath it, as well as those of us who will carry those hopes and dreams forever, may have been suddenly terminated, but like the little flower that grows from between the cracks of cement on our front walks, they rise again. In the children, in the strength of a nation, and in the power of human resiliency.
Thanks for sharing this time with me.
[Edited by Steve Kurtz on October 7th, 2001 at 07:59 AM]
It's been almost a month. A month since our senses were brutally taken by the throat and shaken til we were blue in the face. A month since an unfathomable number of innocents were led, like sheep, to the slaughter. A month since those of us who were left to try and make what little sense you can make out of such an atrocity, were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take emotional inventory and discover what really matters. A month since we were forced to suddenly and violently bid goodbye to so many of our loved ones, so many of our fellow travelers on this bittersweet journey.
What has it meant? Well, for starters, it's meant that our time is indeed measured in short increments. Some of us live to be 80 or beyond. Some of never make it from the womb. And some of us, like you and me, get one chance after another, and hopefully we learn that for every night spent doin' what we wanna do, someone else is doing what they have no say in doing. Suffering, slaving, and dying. For me, this whole tragedy has been a lesson in freedom and democracy. I will never again take for granted my inalienable right to step out my door and make my own decisions. I will never again treat another like I will naturally see them again. It doesn't work that way. Not anymore it doesn't.
I've always marveled at how, on a universal scale, we just don't get it when it comes to recognizing the miracle of life. The miracle of what it takes to create it. And how obscenely cruel it is to take it. And obscenely unfair. But, if I've learned anything, be it in the last month or in the last forty years, it is these two things...Sh*t Happens and Life's Not Fair. I don't mean that to be humorous or crass. I mean them to be the two things you must understand before you proceed with steps 2 thru whatever. Therefore, I have learned that it isn't enough to just like somebody anymore. You have to love them. You have to realize that, so they pissed you off by not returning something on time, or weren't there when you needed them. You have to love them. All we need is love.
It's been a month since we realized that the flame of life can be snuffed out like the flame of a candle...that quickly and that permanently. It's how we appreciate the flame, while it burns, that determines whether or not it's heat and light can be enough to sustain us, and not just provide us momentary comfort. Out of the darkness....
There is a mountain of rubble and debris and wreckage in NYC and in Washington still.
That's nothing compared to the mountain of rubble and debris and wreckage in our hearts.
But, like those tireless workers in both of those shell-shocked cities are discovering, that wreckage can and will be carefully disposed of. The hopes and dreams and love of those buried beneath it, as well as those of us who will carry those hopes and dreams forever, may have been suddenly terminated, but like the little flower that grows from between the cracks of cement on our front walks, they rise again. In the children, in the strength of a nation, and in the power of human resiliency.
Thanks for sharing this time with me.
[Edited by Steve Kurtz on October 7th, 2001 at 07:59 AM]