9/11

It is amazing how certain events in our lives stick dates out like sign posts to help us mark the milestones in our lives. For me the first one was President Kennedy's assassination on November 22nd, 1963. I had just turned 5 years old. All I really understood was that our President, who apparently everyone loved very much, had been shot and killed. Everyone was sad and we got days off from school. The 60's were troubling years for me growing up, as there was so much violence that I simply could not understand.

For me personally, July of 1967 was probably the most difficult. At 9 years old we were evacuated from the civil war in Biafra and returned to the US only to be greeted by the televised reports of the 6 Day War in the middle east. I clearly remember seeing the images on TV - the first TV images I had understood since we went to Africa two years earlier. 1968 was a terrible year as well since we lost both MLK, Jr and Bobby Kennedy and I was beginning to understand that if you wanted to do good, you ran the risk of being killed. And then, of course, there was Viet Nam...

The 70's were somewhat quieter, starting with the end of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war coming to an end, with Nigeria re-absorbing the Biafrans they had worked so hard to eliminate. This was followed by the Kent State shooting in 1970, the attack on the Munich Olympics in '72, Nixon's resignation in '74, more violence in the Middle East, the end of the Viet Nam conflict in '75 and so on... ad nauseum. Then we had the 80's with more assassinations or attempts. I will never forget the day John Lennon was killed, It was a Sunday in 1980 and I was watching football when they announced the news. I sat on the floor in my kitchen and cried.

Not all of these events have been tragedies. I clearly remember watching the moon landing on July 20th 1969. The Berlin Wall coming down in 1989. the fall of the USSR and the end of Apartheid in 1994 were all milestones for me. These events brought a glimmer of hope that human beings could resolve and embrace their differences and live in peace and harmony.

I was in my English 112 class when the first plane hit the tower on 9/11/01. They sent us home. My children were 10 and 16 and Manu was with us from Germany that fall. I got Manu out of bed when I got home and stunned by the images, we watched the tragedy unfold together.  Like Pearl Harbor for the generation before mine, I quickly realized that this would be the "assassination of President Kennedy" for my children. This would be the first event that they would have as a milestone in their lives.

Someone recently asked me "How do you do it?" referring to my living so far from home. I wasn't quite sure what to say. Today, reflecting on the events of my life, I know the answer to that question. You do whatever you have to do to survive living in a world with so much insanity, violence and uncertainty. You look for the simple joys in life and you go on.