Perspective

Today was hard for me.  On the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, my mind returned to that horrible day with unwelcome clarity.  I remember when the first plane hit, I was listening to NPR while eating breakfast and I heard the words "plane" and "World Trade Center" and I went into the kitchen to better hear the radio.  I was sure I misunderstood because the two don't go together.  When they said it again, I was trying to figure it out and to picture it, assuming it was a small plane like the one that hit the Empire State Building several years ago.  I turned on the television to the Today Show and the reporters were looking puzzled and talking about it.  There was footage of the north tower burning, and I was stunned.  It was a bigger crash than I had anticipated, and they said it had been an airliner that hit it.  I was trying to figure it out (did the pilot have a heart attack? engine trouble? struck by lightning?) when I watched the second plane hit.  It was beyond belief.  I remember Katie Couric, who was as perplexed as the rest of the world, wondering aloud if there were problems with air traffic control.  I was frozen with fear and concern.

I left for work out because I didn't know what else to do, and was listening to the coverage on NPR again (we had no TV there and only a dial-up internet connection).  The anchor was interviewing someone from the Pentagon as the world was trying to put the pieces together, and the guy being interviewed began to act concerned.  The anchor said he was getting word of a fire at the Pentagon and the interviewee said he was just told that something happened and he should probably go.  Within minutes it was confirmed that it was another plane that hit the building. 

I couldn't breathe.  I listened to the rest of the day unfold, and it was beyond my capacity to understand when Flight 93 went down and the towers fell.  The NPR anchor said "the South Tower has fallen...it is gone" and I had no idea what that meant.  How can it fall?  How can it be gone?  It made absolutely no sense.  The whole day made no sense.  My world, the Entire World, became incomprehensible.

All of that despair and fear and confusion came back to me today.  When I experienced it ten years ago, it lasted for days and weeks.  I needed touchstones of normalcy to feel better, to return to my life.  I was grateful when the regular television programming finally returned, when people began to shop and eat out and have faces that did not look concerned or fearful or confused. Saturday Night Live will never know what it meant to me to demonstrate it was okay to laugh.

Today I read an article about a female fighter pilot who was on duty when word was received that Flight 93 was highjacked and heading to Washington.  She and another pilot were ordered to intercept the plane and take it down.  At that time, no jets were sitting around, armed and ready for such an emergency, so her task was to take it down by crashing into it.  She and the other pilot spoke briefly, he said he'd take the cockpit and she said she would take the tail.  They had to make sure they brought it down and didn't just wing it, which might allow it to glide to it's target.  They took off, and she was ready to get to work, do her job.....and kill herself.  And in doing so, out of an incomprehensible necessity, she knew it would kill hundreds of innocent passengers in the process.

How does anyone become so brave and so strong?  Most of us who have been lucky enough to become parents would give up our lives for our children, but here was a woman who would do it for complete strangers.  As it turned out, she didn't have to crash into the passenger plane because there were already brave and strong people aboard.  I cannot even wrap my thoughts around that.  I feel so small.

So that's my perspective.  I need to get out of my own head and look at a bigger picture.  Whether it's work, or family, or politics, or the world.  I need to be better because there are people with so much more to deal with than my little issues.  There are people who are so strong and brave and conscientious, that I need to be worthy of living among them.  I also need to be grateful for being here when so many others are no longer with us.