I Remember When...

I don't know exactly where this blog came from, or why, but I guess it doesn't matter.

This blog is for me. I don't mean that in a selfish way  But it doesn't matter whether anyone reads this, or comments. Yep, I get 200 points, and that's nice. But that is not the point  (yeah, bad pun, I know). This is something I really needed to write today. Not sure why. But I know what I have to do. So here goes.

The birth of this post came while I was in spinning class this morning. I suppose that sounds bizarre, but oftentimes things just pop into our conscious, or something we hear or see reminds us of things we have put of out mind, at least temporarily. And all of a sudden we get hit, like running into a wall. I think it was the music that did it.

I found myself thinking of a song that was playing on a particularly emotional day on Sept 15 (4 days after 9-11). Our health club sponsored a 24-hour spin-a-thon to raise money for the families who lost loved ones during this tragedy. I remember, to this day, being in that spinning room, listening to this particular melancholy song, with tears running down my face. And I cannot, even now, listen to that song without profound sadness, and getting choked up. Even as I write these words it becomes too...oh, I don't know, difficult.

And I remember, as vividly as when it happened, watching Tower 2 collapse on TV. There are no words to describe that feeling, or even how I feel about it today. I spend the entire day watching the tragedy unfold, with my younger daughter who took time off from college. And I remember calling our older daughter at college in California to let her know, and to reassure her, and tell her we loved her.

I remember where I was when we attacked Afghanistan, soon after 9-11. My wife and I were visiting our older daughter at school in LA and were having breakfast at Starbucks near USC. Our younger daughter, back at our house in Boston, called us on the cell to tell us we had just attacked. There was shock, and horror, and great sadness, and yes, some fear too. And not being with both our kids at this awful time was hard, especially for the daughter back in Boston. And the fear of flying back home in a few days brought back all the horrors of 9-11.

I remember, not too many years late in 2003, when we were visiting our younger daughter in Sao Paulo, Brazil, when another tragedy hit. We were at a very charming Brazilian jazz café listening to wonderful music, and the news came over the TV that the US had attacked Iraq. Tears, again. What an emotional event to experience in a foreign country where US sentiments are so different. So many people came over to ask what we thought about this...and what can you possibly say? How can you express your feelings  at such a time? We did not support it, but our country did. I was actually embarrassed, at the time, to be an American. The crux of the evening was when the band announced a special song dedicated to freedom and peace in the world.  Well, I don't know what else to say right now.

I remember where I was and what I was doing the moment they announced on TV that Jack Kennedy has been assassinated. This didn't it me in the same manner, but it was no less a tragedy, and a memory that still haunts...and it popped into my head while all the rest of this was going on.

And then my musings got more personal. Why was this happening? I remember exactly what I was doing and where I was when I got the call at work that my wife's father had died. And I remember, all to well, a call some years later at another job when my mother called to let me know my father has just died after years of prostate cancer. We had just been to visit in Philadelphia 4 days earlier, for what I knew was the last time. And I got to kiss him, and tell him I loved him. And that was one of the hardest, and most emotional things I have ever had to do. I would say more, but....well right now I can't.

Fortunately, somehow my mind decided to reflect on more positive things that were significant - then and now. I remember the birth of both daughters as if it were yesterday. I remember when my older daughter got the acceptance letter for her top school - USC. And the same letter from Boston U that came to my younger daughter the following year - her screams of joy on the phone first brought the fear that something horribly had happened. And the memories go on. But I guess I just don't feel like writing anymore. But I needed to do this. For me. Today. Right now.

And I don't care if anyone reads it or not.  And I don't feel like looking for cool graphics to make this pleasant to read. It just doesn't matter.