Boy, was THIS not the post I expected to write tonight!
My brother was on the subway. He called our parents to say he was okay and they at first didn’t know why he wouldn’t be; “Turn on the TV,” Mom and Dad.
My sister-in-law had many students who lost their parents.
My cousin, not far from there, saw the first plane, thought it a terrible accident, went to the top of his building to watch, saw the second come in, and with his colleagues walked the long, long walk home.
My son saw the gaping hole in the Pentagon.
The Washington Post showed a live feed of the White House, and in view was a man in baggy, faded jeans and Cancun t-shirt checking out the sound system, talking intermittently to someone out of view. This went on for awhile till someone apparently realized they were live, at which point the picture cut out and a loud emergency-broadcast-system-type squeal substituted for the sound.
Uh, no. I switched to CNN.
A fair bit later than when the Post had guessed it might start, the President strode up to the podium and began. Waiting for it, I knitted out my nervous energy at full tilt, picturing the man who in his youth had debated trying to become a professional writer now somewhere back there behind the scenes, writing the speech he knew would reverberate through generations to come and societies throughout the world–knowing how important every word was, the consequences of a misspoken one, how solemn the occasion, how important.
The Leader of the Free World has spoken.
Well done, sir. And to our troops too: well done. And thank you.
——
Ed. to add Monday night: It is a solemn and a somber time. I just wish I had the humility of my friend Lyn S, whose instant reaction was to pray for his lost soul. And it is never right to be gleeful at the death of another.
But I do have such a profound sense of relief: at last the personal face of evil can of himself cause no more harm to any living thing.