Today I think back to September 11th 2001 and I still want to cry from the loss of life and tragedy that ensued that day. That day for me, like many Americas, was a normal day. Getting ready for work in the San Francisco room I rented. I was in the shower when I heard the news. Just like when I lost my father to a tragic car accident when a drunk driver killed him, I had to pinch myself. I thought I was dreaming, no wait, I was having a nightmare, but I wasn’t! I was standing in the shower and could not believe it.
Bolting out of the shower with my hair still dripping with shampoo, I turned on the television and lowered the sound of KGO radio simultaneously. Still dazed at what I was seeing and hearing, and thinking that “this can’t be true.” I just felt like I did when I lost my father. I sat there crying thinking about the families and the people, thousands of times more in pain for the loss of life that would have a ripple effect on so many families. The tragedy was way beyond what I could have imagined that day.
Last year, close to the anniversary of 9/11, I watched two movies that dealt with loss. In the movie “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” actors Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks and Thomas Horn play the three characters that did an incredible job with the story. The boy Oskar, (Thomas Horn) looses his father (Tom Hanks) in the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. The boy walks us though his journey of loss, and pain. Oskar takes us through the story of what a child can believe, and not believe, after a loss like that, and what little recovery he has from a loss like that. The child (Oskar) runs around the city grasping for a way to deal with the loss. He invents a scavenger hunt for key that he finds in his fathers belonging in a closet. Desperately he runs around New York City, and other areas, to find the item that the key will fit. He meets hundreds of people, and for the most part the people are all receptive to talking to him. He then discovers that the key is not something that his father intended for him, but the key belongs to another mans father and that other man had just passed away before Hanks died. The key was sold to Hanks by mistake in a garage sale and it was in a vase.
I’m kind of rambling, but it’s amazing how this boy’s journey helped heal him. How time helped heal him, but with loss no matter how much time goes by- it’s still loss.
“You can’t make sense of this” Julia Robert’s character says to him in the movie, “that death does not make senses, it’s not supposed to.” She says this as the child is screaming and utterly out of control. She tells the boy that she too wishes that her husband had not died, that she is basically mourning still (although she doesn’t really come out and say that).
It’s now been 12 years since the tragedy happened in New York. The loss is still there for all of us, some more then others as the loved ones will never have their family, friends, fathers, mothers, husbands, wife brother, sister, uncles, aunts and children back. They are gone and we will remember you.
I’m writing this blog not only so you can remember and maybe help someone through their loss, but also for me. Loss never leaves us. It’s always there. We breath, we eat, we sleep, we love, and we are sometimes happy. I can still remember the day I lost my father like it was yesterday, only it was 33 years ago this past summer. That day I found out that my father died was like a bad dream. To a 14 year old girl whose father was the center of her world, loss is indescribable. Tears still stream down my face when I think about that night he died. How I never told him I loved him when the last time we spoke as I was boarding a train to Texas to see some family. Just like a 14 year old girl that I was on that day, I was mad at him for not letting me wear the outfit I wanted to wear on the train to Texas that hot summer day. My father was going to meet me in Texas in two weeks time and we were going to do a trip to the Grand Canyon. I was to stay with my family in El Paso for a few weeks until he got me there. I always said “I love you” to him when we parted ways, except for the day he died. The pink outfit I wanted to wear that day, I can’t remember what it looked like now, but I do remember my fathers face on the train as he sent me off to the first part of my summer adventure.
Make sense, no way – death does not. That day and the days after it were like a weird movie, of someone else life that I was watching. Not my life, this is not happening to me!
I’m rambling some more, so here is the other movie and if you have not watched it you should, your kids 12 and up should too. It’s the Descendants. If you have not seen this, and you are dealing with loss, any kinds of loss (the loss of love) go see that movie. If you have a friend that has had loss see this movie. Netflix it, DVR it, buy it on demand on Comcast, whatever, just see these movies as it will help a little.
Recently I have been working with my family’s funeral home in Saratoga CA, The Alameda Family Funeral & Cremation that my mother started in the 1960’s with my father Bob Durham, my mother Kathy Alameda-Durham and my grandfather Al Alameda. When I was younger I did not think I could work in the funeral business, because:
A. I had a fear of death and
B. because of the tragedy that happened to my own father when I was so young. It takes a special talent to be able to handle loss and to help people when they are dealing with it.
Sometimes just listening to someone, sometimes no words just a hug is needed, sometimes people just need to be alone, other times they need to be in a loud place surrounded by lots of people and others reading up on how to deal with loss is a good way to pass the time. Personally I liked to eat, so that’s how I dealt with the loss myself. Not so good for a 14 year olds waistline. How to get over loss is an individual process that only you will know how to deal with. Be nice to your neighbors, family, friends and work colleagues. You never know what the person next to you might be going through.
For this 9-11 remember that there are people out there still hurting from this tragedy. Remember them, send blessings their way, and hope that they are healing.