Remembering 9/11 ten years later

As I’m sure most all of our readers are aware, today marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that took thousands of innocent American lives and brought our nation together in a moment of collective mourning.

I remember having a late breakfast with my parents that morning before heading to the hospital where my brother and sister-in-law were with their daughter, who had been born just the day before. There was a strange feeling when we walked into the room as my brother (holding his daughter in his arms) and my sister-in-law (still in the hospital bed and recovering from her C-section) were staring silently at the small television in the corner.

They seemed surprised that we hadn’t heard the news, but we had spent the morning awash in the glow that gaining a new family member provides and hadn’t even thought to turn on a television or a radio.

We watched as the second plane flew into the World Trade Center, and hardly spoke as the horrific tragedy played out on that little screen, the sound coming through a speaker at my sister-in-law’s bedside.

As we watched the World Trade Center fall I also saw the towering hope and joy of my brother and sister-in-law crumble, succumbing (as we all did that day) to an overwhelming sense of shock, vulnerability and fear. Their faces seemed haunted with the question, “What have we done? What kind of world have we brought our daughter into?”

I thought of the Bob Dylan song “Masters of War” in which he sang:

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world

But, just like our country, they were able to overcome. I could see the changes the very next day as the hope and grace embodied in that little baby girl began to transform them and heal them – motivate them to carry on in spite of the horrible things that sometimes happen in this world.

Yesterday I had dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and their 10-year-old daughter, who laughed and joked as most kids do on their birthday. Every year at this time I relive the pain and sorrow of that terrible day. But, every year at this time I also see my little niece and am reminded of hope and grace – and it is her laughter that wins out in my heart. Just as I know that there will always be pain and suffering in the world, I also know there will be the laughter of our children, and with that the unconquerable hope and freedom that shaped our nation.

I want to close out this post with a song, and when I began I assumed I would be going with something patriotic about the resiliency of America and its people. But, after writing the post, I realized that it was something a lot bigger than just America that was under siege on that day ten years ago and that I wanted to include a song that addressed more than just being proud to be an American. So, I chose “Chimes of Freedom” by Bob Dylan. Written by Bob over 45 years ago, the song addresses the essence of what was attacked on 9/11 – the notion of freedom itself. It is performed here by Bruce Springsteen in Copenhagen, Germany in 1988.

“Chimes of Freedom”

Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Photo: Tribute in Light memorial in New York City (J.B Nicholas / Splash News)