Remembering 9/11 on The Abraham of Children Peace Walk

A friend of mine noted what a beautiful day it was this 9/11, and then I remembered all too well how beautiful the weather had been 11 years ago. The air was so clear and crisp that day, but then on the way home there were wisps of ash flying through the air that followed my son and I home. These wisps were reaching out to us and telling us to remember. And so we have. And so much so for me that I could not return to the place where it happened, until only 3 years ago, because I did not want the wound to tear open so vividly again. I had lost no one that day of my own, and yet I had lost every one of those souls as I saw their faces in pictures their families had posted on the subways or walls and fences. The waves of pain were so thick as I went to work on those days after, that I could barely walk, but I forced myself to go on. My going on kept me from crawling into a ball, and I kept on going because I could not let anyone or anything stop me from continuing to live and be fruitful. But still I mourned for those lost and I mourned for those that had done the killing and who were now lost too. I mourned that they could find no other solution and had lost hope. And because I went on, I carried hope inside of me and kept it burning alive inside me.

And on this 9/11 I was wearing my hope on the outside and letting it shine and see the light of day. I was wearing it with my brothers and sisters, of faiths different from mine and faces different from mine, as we all marched together on the Children of Abraham Peace Walk, because I knew that we were not being torn apart, but we were clinging closer; closer than we had before this tragic event. Had this not happened I would have continued to walk past Muslims without really seeing them because they were so foreign to me.

But then this tragedy opened my eyes and suddenly they were visible to me. At first I saw fear in their faces if they even looked at me ever so briefly. Fear that I might hold them responsible and I did not know what to do with their fear, so I kept quiet. It was not long too after the towers came down, that I had surgery on my foot and found myself struggling with a heavy cast with crutches, on the subway platform, when a Muslim woman signed to me, since she did not speak my language, that she wished she could carry me up the the stairs in her arms to spare me. I was so touched I almost wanted to cry because I could see in her eyes she really meant it. And then again a Muslim man on the bus put his hand on his heart to told me in broken English that he felt for my injury. Many people of my faith had helped but none had given me so much empathy as those that I thought were so different from myself and then I knew the wall had come down and I could really see them. And when I walk past women in the street with their veils I think to myself, wow I really love that color or pattern and then our eyes meet and we smile.