9/11: A Day in the Life

by Chahldean
 

Beginning with this issue, Metamorphosis introduces a new series of personal stories about how individuals learned to cope with tragedy and loss ... and how they found spiritual strength to carry on in the face of adversity and sorrow. In the first article of the series, member Chahldean reflects here on the loss of 12 friends in the World Trade Center disaster.

Once, in a Time that now seems to me lost and far away, I can re-member an innocence my Being once felt: the wholeness of playing it safe in my world of daydreams and childish schemes. Everything that mattered to me was omnipresent in my everyday existence, living solely within my perception of my Self, my things, my family and my friends.

From sunrise to sunset, this Life of mine was composed of everything that meant something to me, filled with some One to protect me from feeling “without” or being a-Lone. A Time of Pure Absolute Truth. I can almost remember that Time of Wholeness. Never knowing absence in any form. Never needing, wanting or wishing for anything but what I already had: my Self, my things, my family and my friends. My Life was whole and complete, the way I thought it would be, all ways. A time to re-member indeed. A time whose time had come. Now lost in my memory, but there just the same.

Twice in a Lifetime, one may enjoy the sense of wholeness Life offers us. First, at childhood, when our eyes are wide with Wonder and mischief, when we are entrusted with the power of belief and love. The belief that Life is certain and concrete. The belief that what surrounds us will always remain with us. The belief that nothing changes. For with this love, we will remain in bliss. We are embodied in Truth, never knowing or fearing its absence. It is Absolute. It is for Ever. It just is.

The second Time of Wonder comes when we experience Absence and survive through its tragedy. This is a time of wondering where the omnipresence of Truth has gone; its presence replaced by the loss of belief and love, the loss of things, the loss of family, the loss of friends. The loss of the Child deep within us. A loss that can never be regained in the way that we knew it to be. In this loss, we become lost, and a new wholeness develops - a completeness that can only be experienced and, if we are to be Whole and pure once more, endured.

I am too young to remember the loss of innocence others felt on November 22, 1963, when the young, hopeful President, John F. Kennedy, was taken from this Earth by cowardly acts of human selfishness. A day in the Life of a man whose power of belief and hope was tragically ended in a moment, with spectators witnessing both their lives and Life itself being changed forever. The Absolute becoming the Absence.

Nor was I present the day the music died, years before, to witness in any way the tragic deaths of Richie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, a day that took from adoring fans and loving families three young musicians whose hopes and dreams fell from the heavens in an accident that would change lives forever.

The day that would change my Life forever though, was a day I cannot completely recall. I know it has happened because I now live with its memory loss - the lost memories of those who have left my protected Place. Creating an absence I can neither understand nor resolve, September 11th has marked my Life and Soul with an awareness that nothing is forever. Everything and every One I have coveted in my Life passes through this Time on each One's own journey. A brief encounter. A solitary instance. A day in the long Life of Time. It is but a gift to have. A gift I cannot and do not keep.

These moments ... these days ... they become the threads from which our Lives are woven, seamingly stitching together the loss of innocence and belief with the gain of Wholeness and Insight, creating Wisdom and Understanding that only tragedy can bring forth into Light. It is a light I have come to bear against my Will.

With the help of history and folklore, eyewitness accounts and media coverage, I endured the loss we all felt in all those Days, as it was my own. And I felt the catharsis of humanity on a grave level. In that morning hour of 9/11 - that tragic taking of truly innocent lives - the loss of dear friends in an unforeseen catastrophe left my Life vacant and stirred it into a tempest I still suffer from. Seeing tragic events alter Life in the blink of an eye changed forever the shape of my heart, jaded my perception from wondering why to wondering WHY? Catapulted me into denial and anger, leaving me lost without the Absolute truth I once had in my innocent possession. That was taken forever, leaving only my Self with my thoughts and feelings. Not really sure what they were and how I would deal with them, I hid deep inside my Self.

Feeling lost in my loss, I closed my eyes to see. And all that was present were the good Times spent - the wonderful memories of faces and words of dear friends who are no longer here for me to touch. To see. To call. To laugh with. To cry with. To dream with. To be with.

They are gone forever in this Time and place. Leaving me a-Lone to mend my heart without them. Leaving me without the foundation of friendship I spent a lifetime developing. Leaving me with only words and pictures of days in my Life I wish I could return to and experience in all their glory ... the tastes and smells, the words and laughter, the pain and tears, the promises and dreams ... all so abstract to me now, as if their existence were a dream. I often sit and stare into the sky, as the Child within once did, wondering if they are somewhere out there ... watching me perish, watching my disbelief. Watching me laugh and cry, wanting to live and die. Wanting me to heal. Wanting me to know and understand their plight. Wanting me to allow them their Space and freedom of Time. Wanting me to fight. Hoping I will nourish my deserted, broken heart and not fall apart. Hoping I can endure the tragedies of Life, and journey beyond their lessons.

I do now. More often than not, when I see their loved ones, with smiling faces and hopeful hearts, telling ME it’s OK ... Wanting to look away, I stare in their eyes beneath this disguise and know somehow, someway, this too shall pass. This a-Loneness becomes togetherness. I understand our connectedness and the beauty of Life, with all its pain and sorrow, its hopes and dreams, its mysterious wonders and hard facts. I stand under its incredible power and am humbled by all the blessings and gifts I am given each day in a Life.

I often just sit in silence, trying to be Whole again. Surrendering to my helplessness, I sigh in vain, trying to not make it about me. Trying to seek Absolution again. Trying to return to a day in my Life when my wonder was Wonderful and my friends were here with me; making whole again the pieces I am just now putting back together.

A togetherness, I pray, will come one day in this Life of my journey ... and take me to the place where they now rest in peace.

Absolutely forever.