Ten years ago 40 strangers on a doomed airplane decided to work together- and together they saved thousands of people they would never live to meet.
Yet today, our remembrance of them remains incomplete. The Flight 93 memorial fund lacks $10 million dollars and the memorial remains unfinished.
Can we please follow their solemn example at least long enough to complete their memorial? Even if we can't cooperate on anything else these days, surely we can do this much.
Let's act like the country that the heroes of Flight 93 died to save. Let's do this.
This documentary chronicles the life of Franciscan Friar Mychal Judge, the FDNY Chaplain who followed Christ into the burning towers and out of this mortal life. (His body was the first recovered from the disaster.) Through footage and interviews with friends and colleagues, Father Mychal emerges as a complex, vibrant, devoted Christian- and an equally devoted New Yorker and FDNY chaplain.
Director Steven Rosenbaum presents events in New York City through the eyes of several New Yorkers. It combines the catastrophic footage of the Twin Towers with footage of average New Yorkers both struggling alone and coming together to overcome the awful events of 9/11. A sensitive documentary that presents the entire spectrum of human emotion.
French brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet set out to make a film about how a rookie becomes an FDNY firefighter but were swept up in the events of 9/11 when their camera accidentally captured the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. The resulting documentary is raw and riveting as they follow that rookie- and his entire unit- into the Trade Center during the desperate rescue attempt.
This is the only non-documentary I've included in my list, but it deserves a permanent spot. Director Paul Greengrass recreates the what is known about the events aboard United Flight 93 in tense but respectful detail. Working from primary documents- and even using a number of people who were actually working on the ground that day to recreate the FAA's desperate attempts to track the hijacked planes- Greengrass creates a compelling picture of the ordinary passengers who dared to attack their hijackers.
Although not directly related to 9/11, this documentary about Phillip Petits' highwire stroll between the Twin Towers in 1974places the buildings in their historical context. It reminds us that the World Trade Center was a symbol (albeit controversial) of power, modernity and progress long before it became an icon of tragedy.
Worthwhile Links
History.com has an excellent website featuring as interactive map of the area around the World Trade Center. When you click on various locations you are shown a video of that day taken by an ordinary person who was at that location. The homemade videos are short, but powerful: an NYU student watching from a dormitory, a man living in a nearby apartment building filming firemen taking refuge in the lobby.
New York Times: Portraits of Grief This is the NYT's now-famous collection of essay/obituaries, one for each Trade Center victim. They are now accompanied by a new feature, following up on the surviving families and where they are now.
Biography.com: About 9/11: A thorough overview of 9/11 including facts and figures, a powerful photo gallery, portraits of the victims, and more.
Interactive Publishing.net offers a fascinating collection of screenshots of the front pages of dozens of domestic/international newspapers on September 11&12, 2001. Well worth a look, even if you can't read all the languages.
Rescue at Water's Edge this short video offers a tribute to all the mariners- in craft large and small- who rushed to rescue survivors in New York and transport supplies and help.
Last and Certainly Least...
Here's a list of links to my previous 9/11 posts over the years:
Best wishes for this weekend of unhappy remembrance. Hug your loved ones; you never know what might take them from you. Shake a policeman, EMTs' or firefighter's hand; you never know when you might need them.
"If we're going to fight off all this evil, we've got to do better. We've got to pull together."
Charles Barkley, I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It
What I am about to say will not be popular.
Ten years ago this week, nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered in a coordinated attack on the United States. The nation watched in horror as a handful of religio-political zealots siezed control of domestic airplanes and used them, kamikaze-style, to ram the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. One plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania when passengers overran the cockpit and attacked the hijackers.
By mid-afternoon the attacks were over, but something else was just beginning: all across the country Americans slowly stood up, wiped their eyes and got to work. How can I help? became the national question.
In the process we discovered each other. When all flights were grounded, many passengers found themselves stranded in unfamiliar places. Unable to fly, they rented cars and drove to their destination, sometimes crossing the entire country. These accidental tourists discovered a country of big skies and even bigger hearts. They were joined on the road by thousands of ironworkers, carpenters, EMTs and construction workers who spontaneously walked away from their regular jobs, packed their cars and headed to New York City to volunteer at Ground Zero.
Those who couldn't travel mobbed local blood donation centers, giving until officials had to ask them to stop. A network of free food service, donated clothing and even cheerleaders waving pompoms formed to support the rescue workers at Ground Zero. Schoolchildren sent them encouraging letters.
I am old enough to remember Iranian Hostage Crisis. A pop tune written during that national emergency seemed to capture the 9/11 spirit as well:
'Cause we'll all stick together
And you can take that to the bank
That's the cowboys
And the hippies
And the Rebels
And the Yanks...
We are unworthy now of the country we were then. We no longer deserve the firemen, police officers and EMTs who gave their lives, or the many volunteers who crossed the country to work on "The Pile," or the thousands who lined up to donate blood.
We have divided into vicious, self-righteous, tub-thumping enclaves.
STFU has replaced E Pluribus Unum.
The Capitol Building, with its grand dome and fluted columns, was designed as a kind of temple to our representative government. Today it is the playhouse of a pack of insane children. Legislators demand that peacefully protesting citizens be "investigated for racism" and publicize nasty emails declaring that a colleague is "not a lady."
Police and Firemen are demonized by pundits and politicians as "greedy public sector employees." Members of the Senate balk at extending health benefits for first responders crippled by their work at Ground Zero.
Some pundits have criticized the killing of Osama bin Laden, comparing it to the 9/11 attacks- as if the assassination of a mass-murderer- enjoying the protection of another nation's military- is somehow equal to a sneak attack on thousands of unarmed, innocent civilians.
There is a classic bumpersticker that says: I love Jesus but fear his followers. These days I love my country but fear its "patriots."
But it is not only politicians and pundits who are to blame. Our national conversation has splintered into coarse, crude, self-serving fragments.
Search the web for "9/11 films" or "9/11 documentaries" and you will be treated to a long list of paranoid productions blaming the attacks on everything from Dick Cheney to the end of the gold standard.
Even the martyred passengers of United 93 are not spared. Oh no, say these self-appointed "investigators," these brave "truth-seekers;" that plane was shot down by a missile.
Never underestimate the ability of any dogmatist to look the facts in the face and promptly make up a new story that suits their prejudices better.
I am also waiting for the day when some ambitious blogger announces that he has researched the entire list of 9/11 victims and carefully sorted all the names into registered Republicans or Democrats.
See? X Republicans killed and X Democrats! We win!!!
It would not surprise me. Because the political blogosphere has sunk that low.
We are living in an era when each tiny group believes that only they have all the answers, only they are true patriots and that all opposing opinions should be not just ignored, but exterminated. The opposition, it is said, is not just wrong, but dangerous; they're obviously stooges of this or that secret, evil cabal trying to destroy the country. Only the ideologically pure "us" can save it.
Does anyone but me see the absurdity of calling any American a "pure" anything? Our country is defined by its vigorous, motley, mutinous mix of ideas, ethnicities and backgrounds. It is this very mix, the constant lending and borrowing of solutions and viewpoints, that created the unshakeable safety net of September 12th.
That same mix might just pull us through our current problems, if we let it.
"FROM THE GROUND UP" is the story of their widows. It is the story of trying to make sense of madness, of comforting their children and mourning their losses while the world watches. It’s the journey, taking two steps forward and one step back, through tears, depression and laughter, to triumph through tragedy. It’s the story of honoring their heroes in the most fitting personal ways they can imagine.
..........................
Andrea Garbarini lost her husband, Lt. Charley Garbarini, on September 11. Her dream is to tell these stories, of the bravery, resilience and legacy of the FDNY widows of 9/11 and to honor their heroes. "FROM THE GROUND UP", is a not for profit film that documents the indomitable spirit of these firemen's widows accomplishing extraordinary feats while surviving an extraordinary tragedy.
We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies—
Emily Dickinson
"Ok, there's a group of us and we're going to do something."
Tom Burnett
On September 11th, 2001, four passenger airplanes were hijacked and pointed at landmarks inside the United States. Three of them hit their intended targets.
One did not.
At 10:03 a.m., United Flight 93 streaked out of the sky, wings waggling frantically, and plowed into a reclaimed strip mine just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 580 mph.
Thirty-three passengers and at least 4 crew members had rushed the cockpit and overwhelmed the hijackers, forcing them to crash the plane and denying them their prize.
The passengers were the definition of ordinary: students, grandmothers, business men and women, retirees. They used what weapons came to hand: boiling water from the galley, a food cart intended for delivering in-flight meals.
Before their assault, they placed dozens of calls to friends and family on the ground.
"We can't wait for the authorities," Tom Burnett told his wife. "We have to do something now."
The trapped passengers took a vote. Then they stormed up the aisle to the cockpit, forcing the hijackers to abandon their target and ram the plane into the ground.
Everyone on board was killed, and an untold number of people on the ground were spared.
It didn't really happen that way, says a growing chorus of cynics. The government had that plane shot down. With fighter jets. Seriously. I know this guy, he's a pilot, and he says that passenger revolt stuff is just a fairy tale. It could never bring a plane down.
Really? Well, I like fairy tales. Let me tell you another:
On February 28, 2010, a deranged man deliberately flew a Piper airplane into the Echelon Building in Austin, Texas, with the intent of killing IRS personnel.
A glass worker named Robin Dehaven was driving to work when he saw the Piper zoom out of sight over a hill. When he saw a plume of smoke, Mr. Dehaven, a former combat engineer in the U.S. army, immediately turned his truck in the direction of what he thought was a plane crash. He followed the smoke to the Echelon parking lot, where he saw sheets of flame and clouds of smoke engulfing the upper floors of the building.
A stranger- to this day unidentified- approached Mr. Dehaven's truck and said rescuers needed his work ladder; people were trapped on the second floor. Mr. Dehaven immediately leapt out of the truck grabbed the ladder. He saw the trapped workers- 4 men and a woman- near a broken window. Mr. Dehaven climbed up the ladder and into the burning building, only to discover that the position of the ladder was too unstable for an escape. Still inside the smoke-filled office, he led the group to a better spot, then stood on an outside ledge to guide the panicked employees down the stabilized ladder.
"I don't know who you are, but thank you," said one of the rescued men.
No fighter jets were reported at the scene.
There were none reported here, either:
At 10:32 a.m. on December 12, 2008, the Wells Fargo Bank in Woodburn, Oregon, received a phone call. Get out of the building, said a voice, or you'll all die. A bank employee called the police. Police officers, FBI agents and members of the Oregon State Police Bomb squad responded. A device was found, but deemed harmless. Then it was discovered that the West Coast Bank, less than 150 feet away on one of Woodburn's busiest streets, had also received a threatening call. Another device was found in the bushes outside the bank. Bomb technicians x-rayed the device outside. It too appeared harmless and they took it inside the nearly-evacuated West Coast Bank. (Two employees had not yet left the building.)
At 5:24 p.m., the second device exploded. Captain Tom Tennant of the Woodburn Police and Senior Trooper William Hakim of the Oregon State Police were killed instantly. Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was critically injured; the blast shattered his jaw and he would endure multiple surgeries, including the amputation of his right leg.
Woodburn is a farming community barely 5 miles square. In 2008 over 17% of its 23,355 citizens lived below the poverty line.
The West Coast Bank bombing should have been the final, demoralizing blow of a bitter year.
But it wasn't.
A memorial procession was arranged for Captain Tom Tennant on December 19th. Teenagers from the local high school volunteered to clean and detail the town's police cars for the event. Other volunteers tied blue ribbons around trees and signposts to honor the police. As the solemn parade of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars made its way through town, the citizens of Woodburn lined the sidewalks. They waved big American flags and displayed handmade signs that said: Thank You, Captain Tom.
Captain Tennant and Trooper Hakim both left behind families with teenage children, and after multiple surgeries and months in intensive care, Police Chief Russell's medical bills were escalating.
Woodburn residents began passing the hat. Soon there was such a flood of donations that Mayor Kathy Figley created a 501(c)(3) charity named Woodburn Proud to manage the contributions.
It wasn't long before Woodburn Proud broadened its agenda. They organized cleanup crews for various sites around the city. They staged 5k Fun Runs and Woodburn Appreciation Nights. They began selling a line of Woodburn Proud merchandise- tee-shirts, wristbands and car magnets- to raise money and promote community pride. They participated in campaigns to combat street crime.
On May 26th, 2009, a memorial honoring Tennant, Hakim and Russell was unveiled at the West Coast Bank. The monument was designed and constructed by Woodburn resident Don Sprague. Those attending the unveiling were joined in spirit by passersby who slowed their cars to honk and wave.
In June, after 6 months of surgeries and therapy, Chief Russell was ready to return to part time work. Woodburn held a picnic in his honor and he addressed a crowd of nearly 1200 well-wishers from his wheelchair.
By July 20, 2009, repairs to the West Coast Bank building were complete. The bank staged a grand reopening with catered food, balloons and flowers for the people of Woodburn.
In an official message marking the anniversary of the bombing, Mayor Kathy Figley wrote:
" Our community and the human community have risen to this awful occurrence with courage, faith and hope. While the worst of human nature is repulsive, we have seen the impact of the best of human nature in our community. When we are at our best, we are capable of some amazing things."
Later Woodburn Police Sgt. John Tlusty would put it more succintly:
"You have our back; we have yours."
We don't need a conspiracy theory to "explain" the crash of United Flight 93. The explanation is all around us, in heroes storming other cockpits:
A glass worker climbing into a burning building to rescue strangers trapped inside.
Neighbors joining hands to make a broken community whole again.
Rather than cast doubt, I think I will cast my lot with ordinary Americans and the miracles our combined humanity can sometimes make.
"Ok, there's a group of us and we're going to do something."
"I don't know who you are, but thank you."
"You have our back; we have yours."
That's all the conspiracy I need.
This link has a complete list of the passengers and crew on United flight 93, with biographies for each.
Sometimes you don't say all that you meant to say in the first post. I found myself leaving this comment at Don Surber and realized it belonged here, too:
911 is already a “day of service.” It was a “day of service” in 2001 as soon as the first responders turned on their sirens and headed downtown. They were the first Boots on the Ground in the War on Terror. It has been a “day of service” ever since the awful moment the final tower fell and people spontaneously wept and prayed over candles stuck into jars on the sidewalk. It became a “day of service” when family snapshots wrapped in plastic covered fences and walls, anguished, loving tributes scrawled beneath them. It was already a “day of service” when one of the first victims- a priest, killed while offering the last rites to another victim- was carried out of the carnage by grieving rescuers. And it was the ultimate “day of service” for the ordinary, homegrown heroes, who, still in midair, heard the rumors, looked at one another, and then told their captors: you can’t do this. We won’t let you.
Today can only be for remembrance. Today is for standing, saluting, bowing heads, and honoring the service already given.
On September 11, 2001, 343 members of the New York City Fire Department were killed while attempting to rescue thousands of office workers trapped in the burning Twin Towers. According to the 911 Commission report, this was "the largest loss of life of any emergency response agency in history."
They were the first boots on the ground in the War on Terror.
The FDNY sent fully half its firefighters- 200 units - to the scene, and they were soon joined by other firefighters who, quite simply, sent themselves:
"By 9:15, the number of FDNY personnel en route to or present at the scene was far greater than the commanding chiefs at the scene had requested...while the second fifth alarm had called for 20 engine and 8 ladder companies, in fact 23 engine and 13 ladder companies were dispatched. Second, several units self-dispatched. Third, because the attacks came so close to the 9:00 shift change, many firefighters just going off duty were given permission by company officers to "ride heavy" and became part of those on-duty teams...Fourth, many off-duty firefighters responded from firehouses separately from the on-duty unit...or from home." (911 Commission Report)
Firefighters began climbing the stairs of the North Tower at 8:57.
According to Division Chief for Lower Manhattan Peter Hayden, "We had a very strong sense we would lose firefighters and that we were in deep trouble, but we had estimates of 25,000 to 50,000 civilians, and we had to try to rescue them."(911 Commission Report)
We civilians take this kind of selfless determination on the part of firefighters for granted. It is our luxury, our security blanket. It's like a vital but invisible piece of lifesaving equipment:
"In ascending stairwell B, firefighters were passing a steady and heavy stream of descending civilians. Firemen were impressed with the composure and total lack of panic shown by almost all civilians. Many civilians were in awe of the firefighters and found their mere presence to be calming."(911 Commission Report)
One of those civilians, John Labriola, snapped this photo:
This firefighter, Mike Kehoe, would surive that day. So did Lieutenant Michael Stein, who later wrote in Time Magazine:
"I think what firefighters have that most people don't see is a calmness. They are calm when there's a catastrophe. Where other people would panic and run, they focus and see what they have to do to make a bad situation better. I was a fireman for 25 years so I saw a lot of destruction — nothing to that degree, but you really try to stay focused on what you've got to do. That's what we did then. We just did our jobs."
Stein was forced to retire from the FDNY in 2002. Like many of the firefighters, EMTs and police who responded to the Twin Towers that day and who stayed on to sift through "the pile" after the Towers collapsed, searching for survivors, Stein developed crippling lung disease.
By January 2002, 300 firefighters would be placed on leave for ailments that came to be called "Trade Center Cough." By January 2006, Mt. Sinai Hospital was treating 1600 patients with lung disease blamed on Trade Center Cough.
Even emerging from those towers in one piece was no guarantee of survival.
For many civilians, 911 was the ultimate- and heartbreaking- confirmation of their image of the firefighter: selfless, determined, brave. No situation too dangerous to approach, no life too small to save:
Yet when they take off their uniforms, they can pass unnoticed in a crowd- proof that extraordinary spirits can exist in ordinary people.
For many adults, adrift in an unstable world, unable to believe in a God or trust their political leaders, the icon of the firefighter is one enduring expression of their childhood's faith. It's one of the few things they are still willing to believe in.
That's nearly as big a gift as the lives those firefighters save.
I did not prepare a special post for today. I have only random thoughts.
I found myself wondering last night what I could say about the events of September 11, 2001 that would be 'fresh.' Then I realized that to even think like that was self-centered.
It occurred to me that, for the survivors of the attacks, nothing about them will ever be 'fresh'; they are an unalterable fact of a permanently altered life. Unlike the rest of us, these people do not need to 'pause to remember'; the shape of their daily lives is a constant remembrance.
Maybe it is like a scar that is normally covered by clothing. By day it is invisible to you and to everyone else, but when you stand in the shower you can look down and see it: fading slowly, no longer a rude surprise, but permanent nonetheless.
I won't speculate further on that subject. Of all the losses in my life, none has been so terrible as theirs.
I can speak a little about the rest of us, though. Many people will always remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard that a series of airplanes had been slammed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Some call it "the day the world changed."
I disagree. The world did not change on that day. Instead, some things were brought forcibly to our attention.
Hatred was one of those things. New and baffling forms of hatred danced in front us like demons, jeering.
Self-hatred came first. Like a husband lecturing a battered wife, legions of intellectuals came forward to explain to America why she was to blame for her beatings.
I think, therefore I hate-- myself.
Civilizational hatred came next. Litres of ink were spilled explaining to us in great detail how U.S. culture was viewed by the attackers and their supporters. Still more ink was used in explaining the attacker's culture to Americans.
The world was divided into tribes. Free and not free. Fundamentalist and secular. Eastern and Western.
But the neat divisions did not explain one fact: one of the tribes hated the other so much that they thought even its unarmed civilians should be exterminated. The news of ordinary men and women trapped in burning buildings was cause for celebration.
The demons capered, babbling in tongues. Some of us covered our ears. Others tried to babble back, shouting hatred at hatred.
Ragged, struggling countries leapt from the edge of the map to the center of the universe: Afghanistan. Pakistan. Iraq. Ordinary Americans who could scarcely pronounce their names now saw their sons and daughters going there to fight. Events in these unseen places now had direct consequences in their lives.
For ordinary Americans the world has not changed so much as become visible and unavoidable. Maybe for us it's like that scar in the shower. A permanent change in what we see- and how we see ourselves.
There are not many who remember They say a handful still survive To tell the world about The way the lights went out And keep the memory alive... Billy Joel
A good friend asked me if I planned to post anything on the 6th anniversary of 911. No, I said. There's nothing I can add to all that will be said. This afternoon I read the comments on a website that had marked the day. Do you ever get tired of being asked to remember? Said the post. No, said a commenter. I'm tired of being asked to forget. So am I, I suddenly realized. So this is what I will say instead of forgetting:
I didn't see the jetliners crash into the Twin Towers; I heard them. I was at work and had just returned to my seat after a restroom break. I usually listen to a local radio station via streaming media and earbuds while I work. Just the week before, my station had converted to an all-news, all-talk format. At the time I had complained about it. I'm a music lover. How boring, I groused. It'll never last. Now the BBC was broadcasting live from New York City into my ears. I got the vague impression that something unusual had just happened; a reporter was describing chaos on the sidewalk and I could hear shouting. Then they announced that an airplane had hit one of the towers. I pictured a small Cessna. Hey, I told an older colleague, an airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center. His voice was a shrug. I remember when that happened years ago to the Empire State Building, he said. Across town, a pilot friend of mine was thinking the same thing. Head in the cockpit, he thought, meaning a pilot so glued to his high-tech controls that he forgets to look out at what's ahead of him.
But there was more to it than that. I continued to listen, trying to piece together a story out of the sounds of crowd chaos that only seemed to grow. What was happening? I stood up a looked over the top of my cubicle, earbuds still in place.
I was now alone in the room.
I found the rest of my coworkers in TV lounge next door, silently watching the news. We gasped as the second plane made that deliberate, angry swerve as it adjusted its course to slam into the building.
In New York City, my mate's best friend from college was stopped by the telephone on his way out the door to work. Don't go to the Towers, said his boss. We need you in Queens today.
He spent the day on a rooftop in Queens, watching the Towers burn.
As I sat with my colleagues in the lounge, the news ticker below the live footage announced that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. There were fires on the National Mall, it said. Maybe a bomb outside the State Department.
In those days, my sister worked in a building directly across the river from the Pentagon. In full view of it, as a matter of fact. I forced myself to abandon the TV and ran for my desk phone.
I didn't have her office number with me, but I knew the name of the multistory building. I googled it and came up with a telephone directory for the businesses inside. I called her office.
No answer.
I called the floors above her office.
No answer.
No answer.
No answer.
I called the floors below.
No answer.
No answer.
No answer.
I put my earbuds back in. There was another plane. Not in D.C., not in New York--
About 3 weeks before, a dear friend of mine from college had packed up and moved to rural Pennsylvania. He had emailed me that in his zeal to participate in the community he had volunteered for the local emergency response team.
What a joke, he wrote. Like anything ever happens here.
By noon our local telephone system had crashed and we were asked to make only emergency calls. The Internet clogged and slowed. I remained at work. In those days I had no reliable internet access or TV at home; in order to stay connected I had to stay at work. I told my boss I didn't think I was going to be good for much.
She said not to worry about it.
At the end of the day I went home. I called my parents. I located my sister. Her boss had seen the smoke rising from the Pentagon through her window and charged onto the floor to announce We are so outta here!
Without a car, my sister had been caught up in the crush of oddly silent, oddly cooperative fleeing people. Metro stations began closing at random, bouncing her from stop to stop and back again. She finally arrived at her apartment at 5 pm, having left work before noon.
I hope they find Bin Laden and shoot him in the heart, she snarled. Bet it's a really tiny target.
----------------------
We live in the days since then.
Editorials in major newspapers have told us that we need to get all this into perspective; after all, more people are killed in automobile accidents each year than perished on 911.
The operative word in that sentence is accidents.
Others tell us that we are self-indulgent; that this is far less than the murder and misery caused by US policy in other parts of the world. We had it coming.
Sometimes I want to find the people who say this. Fine, I want to say. Make this right. I want to watch you. I imagine they have a particular figure in mind; the number of bodies needed to balance the scales. And I will follow them from house to house while they gather the requisite amount of people. Don't worry, they will tell each person. After this we'll all be equal. You want to help create a just world, don't you? That house next door- is it occupied? We need ten more from this block...
And when before they can enact their justice I will put them in a plexiglass cage in a human zoo. I will stare at them.
Such people deserve to be stared at. They are a new subspecies of human being.
I have a friend who was at least nominally Catholic before the attacks. The story of flight 93 broke his faith. He couldn't fathom a just God sending such heroes to their death.
My faith was born on that day. Wordless but coherent, it grew in me, unbidden.
Faith that ordinary lives, though small and short, need not be insignificant.
Faith that the America I know is made of many clasped hands and generous hearts.
(Who give so much blood in a single week that even the Red Cross says- Enough! Who carry food to Ground Zero and gather every morning to cheer the rescue workers. Who link arms around the outside of mosques to protect American Muslims.)
Faith that my small life can somehow be of service.
My new faith has one ritual act. Every year, on the afternoon of 911, I carry a bouquet of roses to our local firehouse.
I walk.
I walk because it comforts me to see the neighborhood, with its tidy homes and lawns. I walk because it gives me time alone to think about what this day means.
I walk to our local firehouse because I can't walk all the way across the country to a firehouse in New York City. A firehouse where no crew returned on the evening of September 11th, 2001.
I walk because I know our own firemen would have behaved no differently than those vanished ones.
When I get home I know that they are still protecting something worth saving.
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