Remembering ....

Photo courtesy of Jamie at Simply Me Art

No explanation really needed today...

The term "9/11" will probably never need an explanation anymore.

I hope for as long as our country stands, we will pause to recall the way the horror of 9-11-01 forever changed things - and remember how fragile life is, every second of every day.

That day showed me how NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING was sacred.

Images forever burned in my memory of that day unfolding on television.

But no image more humbling as seeing my husband - my strong, handsome, mostly stoic husband crumbled by having to watch the video (over and over and over again) of the tower containing his best friend fall to the ground like some child's sandcastle that had been carelessly stepped on by a beach walker.

Those are the images that will forever touch my heart as I recall the one thing that brought him to a place in his life he never would have chosen to go --

a place in sheer grief, and horror and pain that no human should have to go.

When you experience how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life --

and you survive.

That is why this day, no matter how many others in the world allow the memory to fade like an old photo, will forever be one that he would probably wish to be somehow removed from our calendar.

But to do so would also be to remove the memory (no matter how horrific) of how it feels to also be held --

to be held by a faith that DOES offer peace in the storm and hope for healing and a future.

I'm remembering today --remembering all those who lost someone of value and great significance in their life that day.

Praying that there can somehow be a gentle moving from the questions of "why" into perhaps embracing the the hope of a future, moving forward.

The words in the song called "Held" by Natalie Grant are so touching -- these in particular:

"This hand holds bitterness,

want to taste it,

let the hatred numb our sorrows;

but then the wise hand opens slowly

to lilies of the valley

and

tomorrow..."

While we who are left behind grieve, there is tomorrow and there is hope.

And today,

there is remembrance.

My great thanks to Jamie of Simply Me Art for her absolutely beautiful photo tribute to this day.

She has created an image that is so touching, simply stated and has a beautiful, feminine perspective.

Thank you, Jamie!

You are loved -

may you also be "held",

~Ruth~