I don't think we give ourselves time to grieve anymore. I know that sounds strange after the last couple of silly posts, but I was just on Facebook, being funny myself, when I saw an ad for "World Trade Center." An Oliver Stone production. I've seen previews--I went to "The Devil Wears Prada" in Spring Valley, and there was a preview. And I just thought now what I thought then. We're not ready to see this. I'm not ready to see this.
I know it's supposed to be the story of heroes, that it's supposed to be a tale of strength and courage and literally digging to life from the ashes. But I'm not ready. Five years later and I'm not ready to see that footage of smoke and falling bodies that I watched standing in the middle of Reckers on a Tuesday morning. I'm not ready to see lines of people waiting to pay $7 to see a tragedy unfold that is part of my living memory. And I'm about as removed from the event as is humanly possible.
I knew no one involved, not until I heard about the Pentagon, and Capt. Tone was on the other side of the building when that happened. It doesn't matter. I'm still not ready to see it on screen.
But I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for that. I live in a world where I am so constantly bombarded by the pain and viciousness and anger of the current reality that I don't want to see what we've already gone through. I want to let that wound heal a little more, just a little.
The one thing I remember thinking was "this can't be happening to us." This doesn't happen to us. And I was in Reckers the day we brought war to Afghanistan, and this time it was real. Not like the Gulf, which should have been more real because my father was there. This was real because this time it would be my brother's story. And I was resolute that this was what needed to happen, and because if we were sending men to die then by God I would back the mission. In all honesty, I don't regret any of it. Not that I did much. I got righteous at all the right times, silent at the right times, agreed to disagree more times than I can count. And I cried. A lot.
I don't cry anymore, and it's weird. I mean, I cry at stupid things--goodbyes and Hallmark cards and touching lines of poetry. But we're still at war in Afghanistan and I don't cry anymore. We're still at war in Iraq. We've been waiting for fifty years to leave Korea, and there is no end in sight for that war...just waves of hope and disappointment. But that's just the way things are, right? That's the mission. Make sure that, if nothing else, this doesn't happen here again. War is what happens in other places. Not here.
Is there any other country on earth that has had the luxury to believe that in the last hundred years? The last fifty? The last twenty-five? Canada, maybe. Australia. Scandinavian countries. That's pretty much it. We bring it, so we don't have to take it. And I still...through my despair, I still prefer it that way. Maybe that's why I'm not ready for this stupid movie. Maybe I'm not ready to have images of the World Trade Center side by side in my brain with the attacks on Baghdad and Kandahar and admit that the strangers in the first were more important to me than the strangers in the second and third. That, when it comes to your brother or mine, yours is a loss I can handle. And the knowledge that as long as I, and others, think that way, nothing is ever going to change.
I was thinking the other day...The symbol of Islam is a crescent moon...a curved blade. Christianity: a cross; a sword. Judaism: six points defending an enclosed center. It's funny what symbols we choose for our religions; what self-fulfilling prophecies they can be. Maybe someday I, as a Christian, will be able to see the cross for what it is: a sword with its point in the ground. The very symbol of our faith, the violent instrument of Christ's death, is a call to pacifism. Even at the cost of our own lives. And that is terrifying.
Song of the moment: Ps. 130
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