Chicken Soup for the Soul of America (24 page)

Sharon laughed softly, “Evidently not, Bessie.” She paused. Then she said, “I'm sorry, Bessie. The boys were scared. They thought your son and his friends would hurt them.”

Bessie didn't answer right away. But, I could hear a long exhale. Then her voice cracked a little as she said, “We can't be thinking like that. They's plenty of folks who want that; they's crazy folks in this world. Here comes your boy. They got some soda pop. . . . Mama? You take care, now, hear?”

We heard. We heard New York City turn into a small town where mothers looked after each others' children, chastising them when they needed it; where a group of white Jewish boys and a group of black Harlem boys became just boys enjoying a soda together on a street corner on a hot summer night.

September 11 changed the world forever. New York City and all Americans experienced the worst trauma, the worst horror imaginable. It sickened us all.

That night, at 135th and Amsterdam, a few of us began our recovery.

Marsha Arons

Our American Family

I had been in New York a month before the World Trade Center Towers came down. My family had gathered at a cemetery in Staten Island for the unveiling of my mother's gravestone. The carved granite read “wife, mother, grandmother.” She was that, and she was aunt, sister-in-law and friend as well. Once, she was someone's daughter, too. We had come to remember all that.

We looked around for small stones to put on the grave, as is the custom of our religion. I managed to unearth a variety of pebbles, which I held tightly in my hand. Other relatives of mine were buried in that cemetery, and I wanted to remember them, too, by laying memorial stones on their graves. I went from one marker to another in the family plot, laying a symbolic memory on each.

When I finished honoring my relatives, I realized that I had one stone left in my hand. Rather than toss it back on the ground, I looked around for a grave that had no stones, that could use an offering from a stranger. But every grave had at least one stone placed on it. So I put the stone I had been carrying in my purse and thought no more about it.

The Sunday after the terrorist attacks, I was on my way to New York again, to bring my father to see his sister in Brooklyn. I remembered my last trip to the cemetery. How many more graves there would be now. How many more stones would be needed.

When I returned home, I found the stone I had put in my purse. I took it outside and placed it respectfully in a protected spot in my garden where I could see it as I sat quietly in my back yard. There it would remind me of all the wives, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and friends who I never knew but grieved for all the same.

The stone was no longer the offering of a stranger. There are no strangers in this country anymore. We are an American family connected by ties of grief, memory and hope.

Ferida Wolff

6

REFLECTIONS

W
hen I despair, I remember that all through history, the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it. Always.

Mahatma Gandhi

Vintage Voices

Chromed wheelchairs and walkers—parked bumper-to-knee—lined the walls. Dented and scarred from life's battles, silver-haired seniors packed the residents' dining hall at a local eldercare facility. The afternoon's scheduled activity was shoved aside to make room for the topic crowding everyone's minds: the September 11 terrorist attacks on America.

These are their thoughts, their comments, their opinions—ageless wisdom from those nearly forgotten faces in the rearview mirror:

On Fear . . .

• If we feed hope, fear will starve to death.—
Selma, age 74

• I always thought the Great Depression was the hardest times. But worrying about the future for your grandkids is harder.
—Elsie, age 82

• At first, I just wanted to pull the covers over my head. Later, I decided to bow my head.
—Bernice, age 75

• I spent all my working years trying to make life better for my children and grandchildren. Terrorism and war weren't what I had in mind.
—Henry, age 85

• In times like these, we need a hand to hold.
—Lena, age 101

• Worry is like a rocking chair: It keeps you busy, but it doesn't get you anywhere.
—Ava, age 71

• Why worry when you can pray?
—Trudy, age 89

• When fear comes in uninvited, just don't give it a chair to sit on.
—Conrad, age 84

On Courage . . .

• Tragedy is tough, but we're tougher.
—Rosa, age 94

• Once, I served with the best, for the best. Nothing has changed.
—Gordie, WWII veteran, age 79

• Even in the worst of times, we need to be grateful for our blessings.
—Inez, age 90

• We've survived hardship and loss. We're a strong generation. The same God who got us through then will get us through now.
—Walter, WWII veteran, age 81

• It'll feel better when it quits hurtin'.
—Ernst, age 78

• Americans know a “call to arms” really means my arm in your arm . . . with God's arm around us all.
—Herman, age 83

On Sorrow . . .

• Some people are gonna be mad at God.
—Eugene, age 82

• I lost a brother to WWI. I lost a son to WWII. I saw grandnephews serve in Korea, a granddaughter nurse the wounded in Vietnam and a great-grandson board a ship for the Persian Gulf. And I can only shake my head in disappointment . . . just as God must be doing. When will mankind learn?
—Lucy, age 100

• The more I see how people can hate, the better I like dogs.
—Bill, age 97

• I've learned it's love, not time, that heals all wounds.
—Selma, age 80

• War and sin . . . to my way of thinking, they're one and the same. And both corrode the soul.
—Vera, age 88

• I have old memories, but young hopes.
—Elverne, age 77

On Hope . . .

• Hope means hanging on even after others let loose.
—Fern, age 75

• I hope our government ain't all vine and no taters.
—Wilber, age 80

• We can only hope for the best, prepare for the worst . . . and make do with whatever happens.
—Lillian, age 74

• Kites rise against the wind. So will we.—
Herman, age 83

• My favorite words in the Bible are, “And it came to pass.” This, too, will pass.
—Marie, age 93

• Them terrorists barked up the wrong tree. The US of A is made of sterner stuff than they know.
—Wilber, age 80

On God . . .

• When we think we can't help in some other way, we can always pray.
—Marta, age 96

• I think God allows dark times so that we'll search for his light.
—Howard, WWII veteran, age 81

• My momma always said, “Evil stands on one leg; goodness stands on two.”
—Hazel, age 92

• I keep wondering,
Where is God in all of this?
And I keep thinking,
He's waiting to hear from you.—Edna, age 103

• God is as tough as a pine knot.
—Mary Margaret, age 77

• We need to look to God in prayer. My knees don't work anymore, but I'm kneeling in my heart just the same.
—Marie, age 93

Carol McAdoo Rehme

Time to Pray

M
ore things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

Abraham Lincoln

On the morning of September 11, 2001, my family woke to the sounds of metal crashing and a person screaming. I ran for the phone to call 911, while my son hurried to the corner. He returned with a report that a motorcyclist had broadsided a left-turning car and had been thrown twenty feet along the pavement. Emergency vehicles arrived promptly, and everyone seemed to be all right. But still, the event rattled me. It reminded me that our lives can be dramatically changed in a single moment.

A short time later my husband called from work and told me to turn on the news.

What?
I thought.
That neighborhood accident made the news?

“What channel?” I asked.

“Pick one,” he said flatly.

I hurried to the living room and punched the power button. Immediately, I saw a strange and terrible sight. A skyscraper with fire and smoke billowing out a few stories from the top. Sketchy blurbs scrolled across the bottom of the screen as flustered newscasters spoke in shocked tones about the World Trade Center. A passenger jet had flown directly, purposefully, into the North Tower, instantly killing everyone on board and many inside the building. Another plane flew into the South Tower. One tower had collapsed. As I watched, the second one fell.

Hours passed as I watched the reports, updates and corrections in stunned shock. The Pentagon had also been hit. Another plane had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. At the time, no one knew if there was a connection between the plane that crashed “in the middle of nowhere” and the others. Later, it was determined that it had also been hijacked, apparently intended for the White House or Air Force One.

What kind of a world do we live in?
I thought. Ignoring the work I had scheduled to do that day, I spent hours glued to the television. The newscasts on every channel showed videos of the planes slamming into the towers over and over again. Every once in a while, new footage was found and shown, displaying the gruesome scenario from different angles.

We had just been in New York. Eleven days before, on August 31, my husband and I had flown out of Newark Airport to visit relatives in Pennsylvania and Kentucky for a week and a half. On Sunday, September 9, we drove back to Newark Airport. We arrived in New Jersey well ahead of schedule, so we drove around, looked at the sights and took pictures—including photos of the New York skyline! We ended up missing our original return flight, as well as a connecting flight, so we didn't get back home until about five o'clock Monday evening. The next morning, as we watched the news, I thanked God that we had made it home, and I prayed for the many who hadn't.

All day Tuesday, most of Wednesday and a good portion of the days thereafter, I watched the news on television, listened to news radio and even checked the news pages of the Internet for updates. I watched the many faces of people who had been directly affected by this unspeakable tragedy—those whose loved ones had died or been severely injured.

In the midst of the tragedy, stories of bravery and heroism surfaced. One story described a man on the Pennsylvania plane who tried to call home, but ended up reaching an operator. After making her promise to call his wife and children to tell them he loved them, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer with him. She did. Then he, with the help of a few other passengers, somehow thwarted the hijackers' intentions and ultimately saved the lives of countless individuals who had been targeted for attack on the ground.

As the days passed, I did my best to return to my usual routine—especially to my work, as the president had urged us to do. But life no longer felt “normal.” Like most people in the country, my emotions were much closer to the surface. I only left the house to get groceries or other necessities. And I was not making plans for another cross-country vacation any time soon.

But the most noticeable difference in my life was an obsessive compulsion to watch the news. I have never been one to tune in regularly or even to read the newspaper (other than the entertainment and coupons sections). But after September 11, I started listening to the news several times a day to catch all the late-breaking updates. We listened to news reports every night just before bed. The television was turned on first thing every morning, even before breakfast, to find out what had happened while we were sleeping. Throughout the day, I checked Internet news sites and flipped madly from local stations to CNN, MSNBC and back again. I didn't want to miss anything new, and I was ready to grab the phone and call friends and loved ones if something happened they might have missed.

One day, as I sat glued to the television, something occurred to me. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have that same obsessive compulsion about spending time with the Lord—praying with him, listening for his voice, reading and studying his word? Not that it wasn't important to find out if CNN had anything new. But shouldn't it be even more important to make sure I didn't miss anything God might have to say to me? How different would my life, and the lives of my friends and loved ones, be if I called them immediately every time I received a new tidbit of wisdom from the Lord?

In that moment, I made myself a promise. Whenever I felt the urge to pick up the remote and turn on the news to find out what was going on, I would pray. Pray for my country. Pray for President Bush and his advisors. Pray for those who had lost loved ones in the attacks. Pray for the rescue workers at the disaster sites. Pray for the Arab-Americans who were experiencing the backlash of prejudice. Pray for the innocent civilians of Afghanistan. Pray for the reservists who had been called to report for duty. Pray for those who might be planning further attacks against the United States or other peace-loving countries. Pray for the Taliban and even for Osama bin Laden himself. Pray for all the individuals who had been so deceived by evil that they believed they were doing God and the world a favor by eliminating the “spiritually bankrupt” people of America from the face of this planet.