We process tragedy in our own ways. It’s not right or wrong.

When the world around me is trying to process tragedy so great, I simply can’t join them.

The morning the attacks hit the towers…

As the world gathered around televisions and computers, I was getting dressed for my father’s funeral. No connection of course, simply a matter of odd, unpleasant timing. My {now} husband and I watched the television We looked on in the silence, shock, and awe that comes with such an act of hatred . Then we drove to my father’s funeral, and I sort of left it all behind.

 

So that day, a horrible, rotten, awful day for America was personally a tough day for me.

I was never trying to be selfish. I just had my own stuff.  

I was still trying to process tragedy I didn’t understand.When someone says September 11th, the first thought in my mind is my personal tragedy.When someone writes,” I won’t remember exactly what I was doing.” I will. Every year. Forever.

We all need time to process tragedy in our own ways. It’s a grieving process unique to each person.There is no one way to process tragedy in our lives. There isn’t a wrong way or a right way. It’s a person choice as to how he or she can process tragedy to overcome grief. Maybe it really takes years to process tragedy.

 I want to share a perspective that I am often embarrassed to tell people about. It took years for me to process the gravity of the attacks that happened on September 11th. Did I not care about the world? Feel sadness for the countless lives lost? Anger for the senseless act of destruction?Fear it brought to our nation? I did. I promise I did.

For years I walked around not truly embracing the magnitude of the attacks or the tragedy that took place that day. Was I affected by it, you bet. I have seen my husband through two tours of duty serving this country as a result of that day. Not as a result of my father’s funeral. Every year, while the world mourned, my thoughts wandered to my father, not the victims and their families. I felt selfish in how I chose to process tragedy at that moment.

When my husband was back from his tour in Iraq, we visited New York City and Ground Zero. We lingered in the museum. It was sad, very sad. I cried which is something I had never done to signify I understood what had happened that day. We went on a tour with a victim’s parents. He was a fire fighter. He rushed in to help but never came out. Their accounts of the day, the after math, the burial of their son were chilling. Haunting to say the least.

 Writing this today, my thoughts wander to my own son.

 I have a little boy of my own who wants to be a soldier like his daddy.

Years later, Ground Zero shares a place in my mind next to those of my father. It’s a weird coincidence to have these two memories attached to the same day of the same year, but that’s the way life works. I can’t even imagine the loss that other’s feel at this very minute, but I do understand loss. I can finally let the sorrow of September 11th into my heart and process tragedy so great that it will last forever.

 

What is forever on your mind the day of September 11th? Do you have a different memory?