Never Forget

It's so hard to believe it has been 10 years since September 11th.
Today's news coverage of the families at the new memorial site brought it all back like it was yesterday.
The reading of the names of victims - so many my own age back then and my age now.

I think back to that morning - the crystal clear blue sky we all remember so well, landing at JFK from Boston at 8:25am on the American Airlines flight. My ex going down to work on Wall Street. He was forever changed by that day, as all too many people were. It seems...Everything changed.

I don't know why I was so lucky that day. I was on a 757 headed for Jamaica, stopping at JFK first. Two other planes from Logan were chosen that morning.
I think back to what I've accomplished with my life since then...Since so many other lives were taken that day, and I'm ashamed to say not much. Shortly after 9/11 I began taking life for granted again. I still am.

When I think my life has no meaning I think back to the saying, "You are just one person in the world. But to one person out there- you are the world".

A lot of people lost that one person who was their whole world that day.

The past decade has been filled with many challenges. But really whose adult life isn't? I need to keep it in perspective and remember things can be worse, so much worse.

I want to copy here a portion of what I rate a 5 star book. Titled, Unmeasured Strength, by Laura Manning. She worked as Managing Director at Cantor Fitzgerald and escaped the towers with burns over 82% of her body. Her determination and strength to fight to live, no matter how difficult things are. She is, as so many other stories of September 11th, a true inspiration. She reminds me that even though I haven't done any good with my life the past 10 years after I was so lucky that day, I do live my life keeping my word, and doing my best. And I can keep doing my best even better.


Excerpts from Unmeasured Strength, by Laura Manning via msnbc.com:

>>>>I was blessed by the support and comfort provided by my loved ones, and strengthened by the belief from within that I could reclaim my life. The guardians of my heart—my husband, my son, and the rest of my family—cradled me. An enormous outpouring of letters and prayers, messages and gifts from around the world flooded our lives with a happiness that lifted me in my darkest moments, and a hope that helped fuel my survival.
Yet while I was surrounded by love, the journey through a harsh and unforgiving landscape of pain and disability was mine alone to make. That I lived, that I narrowly escaped the fate of so many others that day, is a humbling reminder of both the extreme fragility and the surprising courage that exist within all of us. What I know for certain is that there would be no story at all if I hadn't somehow held a deep faith in myself or understood the beauty and power of a simple word: commitment. Commitment to all that is worthwhile in life: to the people who are most important to us; to the endeavors that will yield the most good; to the acts of kindness or courage that reflect our deepest values. Commitment, I've learned, brings focus and direction, an innate sense that guides us from within, providing a compass for our lives. It also brings responsibility, most especially the requirement that we keep our word and always give our best.

Before I was injured, I had committed to any number of things. To relationships, friends, family. To hard work and a successful career. To commonplace hopes and deepest desires. Generally I had done this by relying on a quiet confidence that I could make good things happen. But the truth is, I sometimes wasn't able to do so. On occasion, I felt strangely paralyzed by the thought of achieving my goals. At other times, the effort to reach a desired destination proved so difficult that my vision of it dimmed, and eventually I moved on to new dreams.

But when 9/11 brought me to the border between life and death, and then face-to-face with monumental challenges, I understood that no matter how painful the task before me, I could not turn away. I had to make the most important commitment of all: a commitment to life itself.

It's now been a decade since that day, and sometimes I look back and wonder, Have I accomplished anything of note or great worth? People have called me a hero, but I can only say that I did what I needed to do. I was not the agent of my own adversity. Pain and suffering were imposed on me; they invaded and overwhelmed my body and threatened to crush my soul. Once I opened my eyes after a long climb out of the darkness, I knew that every day, I had a choice. Every day I had to fully commit to outlasting my enemies—those cowards who covered their faces from the light and screamed toward us in their metal daggers. Would I let their act of terror beat me into submission? Would I let them win? Would I let them steal my will to live, having failed to extinguish my life itself? Every day, I had to reach deep inside and find an as yet unmeasured strength that made it possible to carry on.
As I encountered and then overcame one obstacle after another, what mattered most was that I was loved. I had a husband who thought I was beautiful, even though so much of my body had been burned. I had a son who was always thrilled to see me. And luck? I had that, too. Pure luck, blind luck, and bad luck—on 9/11, I ended up with all three.
So yes, this is a story about what happened to me on September 11. But it's also about November 11, the day I first spoke again, and it's about June 11, the first time I danced again with my beautiful boy Tyler. It's about September 11, 2002, when I cheered for the glory of my lost colleagues. And it's about every day afterward.
This is the story of how I learned to live again.<<<
From the Book UNMEASURED STRENGTH by Lauren Manning. Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Manning. Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt and Company LLC.