Up the Sunbeam

My friends, I know I have been quiet a long while. All is well! School is demanding, exciting and rewarding! I miss you all, and thought I would peek back in and share an old post that expressed my heart on this day of remembrance. Now we have the events of Benghazi to add to the sorrows we remember on this date. My prayers are with my beloved country and all the people who sorrow personally for loved ones lost--our hearts are with you always! Some moments from September 11th, 2001 are etched in my memory like names on a tombstone. The first fuzzy awareness in the pre-dawn darkness that something was wrong--what was Hero Husband saying? Airplane? World Trade Center? Coming fully awake to look through my TV-window-on-the-world only to see the crystal clear New York City sky and realizing it could be no accident. Smoke pouring from the gaping hole in one tower . . . and then there were two! Instant knowing--terrorists! It had to be! Firemen, ambulances, police, reporters, terrified peo...

Some moments from September 11th, 2001 are etched in my memory like names on a tombstone. The first fuzzy awareness in the pre-dawn darkness that something was wrong--what was My Tony saying? Airplane? World Trade Center? Coming fully awake to look through my TV-window-on-the-world only to see the crystal clear New York City sky and realizing it could be no accident. Smoke pouring from the gaping hole in one tower . . . and then there were two! Instant knowing--terrorists! It had to be! Firemen, ambulances, police, reporters, terrified people running pell mell to get away from the surreal devastation behind and above them. Me trying not to sound strange and scared and tight when it was time to get the kids up for school--would there be any school? Suddenly everything was a question mark! Brain on fire trying to think, make sense of something, anything, should I make lunches? How could I do anything but watch and listen and hope someone knew what was going on. THE PENTA...

It used to bloom. Sometimes it still tries, but it didn't bloom this year. Our crape myrtle, my husband's favorite tree with it's riot of ruffled clusters of bright raspberry flowers, should be capable of growing into a shady green canopy to cool all beneath from the blazing Contra Costa sun . . . but it hasn't. We had such high hopes for it wh en we planted it shortly after we moved into our house in 2000. Shown here (long before I had a good camera) on that fateful Tuesday morning, Septem ber 11th, 2001, when we knew the world would never be the same and nothing made sense, our crape myrtle was healthy and growing, still young and spindly, but go ing places. It proudly held our courage-flag as we tried t o keep hope alive in the midst of so much death and destruction in an event that felt i ntolerable. That was 2001--this is 2009. Wh y, after more than 8 years does that t ree look like t hi s? There are thousands of these trees in this a...