September 11

10 Years of Heartache

10 Years of Heroes

10 Years of Healing

10 Years of Hope

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It's been a weird ten years, hasn't it?  Today, Ape and I watched a lot of the Memorial coverage, after having gone to bed watching some of the documentaries Saturday night.  It's still surreal remembering how I found out.

Driving to work at about 9am, in the rain.  Cars pulled over left and right.  me, wondering what was wrong with the road to take so many off the highway - oil? spilled nails?  Finally, I turned on the radio and heard the news.  At work, we all watched around a TV, and I was on the phone with Ape most of the day.

I still couldn't believe both towers fell.  I knew they took a hell of a beating from the impacts, but I figured the tops might collapse around the lower undamaged sections.  But they fell, two massive giants felled by human intolerance.

For me, one of the hardest things about all the coverage that followed, aside from grasping the sheer scale of the human tragedy and the physical destruction, was some of the imagery of the planes' impacts and the jumpers.  Knowing that I was watching human beings die right *then* was and is hard for me.  I know that Death is a part of life, and if you've been keeping up, you know our clan has been visited by the "natural" kind as well as the death that follows an accident.

I'm not a White Mage and healer by coincidence.  I've long been one who attempts to heal all, any way I can.  And images of actual deaths bother me.  News accounts of a gunned-down drug lord, or a school massacre, or a car wreck.  They all bother me, because I feel it in some way, knowing that what was lost is not just an animated collection of organic chemistry and fancy nerves.

People are the most amazing things God made and all of us are worthy of existing.  All life is precious, but, for the most part, it's only humans that seek out to hurt others by killing innocents.

I don't think I mentioned this part, but maybe I did.  Days after 9/11, I wanted bin Laden caught, caged, and paraded through every town in America, beginning with New York.  Whether he cared or not (and one assumes he didn't), I wanted our survivors to let him know how they felt.  It wouldn't necessarily bring closure, but at least it would de-anonymise the attacks.

Of course, the end of the tour would have been the end of the line for him.

Then, a couple months ago, when the news came that he was dead, I saw Facebook posts, tweets, news blurbs and more where many people were celebrating his end, and there was a definite undercurrent of relief and gladness at his execution.  I will not blame anyone for feeling this way - for feeling *any* way really, regarding this monster and his monstrous acts.

But for me, there was a numbness.  I wasn't sure what I felt.  And then, after a time, came a feeling of finality.  Yes, I know there are more monsters out there, but THIS monster was no more.  Next came sadness, at seeing how people were celebrating the ending of a life.  I do not doubt that he, as well as many sociopaths/psychopaths simply need to go away.  But it did sadden me a little to see so much apparent joy in it.

Again, I do not blame.  But as a healer, it made me sad.  This was probably one of the most extreme cases of human wrongness since Hitler and Saddam tried their hands at genocide.  But there are many who die as villains and criminals for much lesser things and even still, there is a loss there that can never be recovered.

We shouldn't build bigger jails, though there is sometimes need.
We shouldn't torture and make to suffer those who have done wrong, though there is sometimes need.
We shouldn't seek to end lives, nor harm life for any reason, though there is sometimes need.

We need a way to heal.  To heal all wounds.  Those of the victims and those of the perpetrators of wrongdoing and in some cases, evil.  We need to heal /before/ there is a change in course to wrongness.

We should strive to build a world where no one feels harming others is the best way to meet their own physical and psychological needs.  Everyone was a child once.  Everyone was new, innocent, and amoral once.  We need to build a world where working together and preventing hate, intolerance and malicious greed is a common goal.

Am I an idealist?  Yes.  Am I floating in the clouds?  Most likely.  Am I wrong to want such a world?

I hope not.  But somebody has to believe we can all find a way to make everyone's dreams come true.