8:07AM, SEPTEMBER 11, 2010

Up until now, I have only ever told family and a few of my closest friends what I am about to tell you. I am writing this hoping to expunge pain from my heart that might never truly dissipate. I suffer from survivor’s guilt.

You see, nine years ago yesterday, September 10, 2001, I flew over the World Trade Center. I was on my way back stateside from Madrid; I had been attending the wedding of the daughter of one of my closest friends. I was on a Lufthansa plane that connected me from Frankfurt to my hometown of Philadelphia. The flight path we had taken took us over New York…and over the twin towers.

Indeed, the plane home to Tampa was delayed by a thunderstorm in Philadelphia and I didn’t end up at home until about midnight. Eight hours later, nine years ago this hour in fact, well, I don’t need to tell you. But can you possibly imagine if the flight home had been cancelled and I would have had to go home the next day? Who’s to say what might have happened? Who’s to say that the terrorists might not have boarded that plane and threatened those people with box cutters, exacto knives or whatever else? Who’s to say that I would not have been at risk?

That morning, after the towers collapsed, I had to get out of the house. For the first time perhaps in my life, my car pointed itself to a nearby church. I don’t recall steering it; it just pointed me, as if angels were at the wheel, to a church. And I prayed. Harder than I could ever pray for myself, I prayed for all of the survivors and all of the people who could not have survived. Then I tried to go about my day. I took photos to the supermarket to be developed. There were a lot of people inside that place trying to go about their day, too, probably like me, trying to deny what they might have just seen. I ate lunch. I rented movies, trying to take my mind off. But I couldn’t.

And now, every time this day rolls around in the calendar, I get upset. Although I will admit that the pain seems duller with the passage of time. I can’t bear to watch the memorials, the tributes, the replays of what happened. And so I go on a media fast. I won’t watch teevee or listen to radio on this day; to do so would blast open the wound and renew the pain. And if I may expand on the same advice that Rudy Giuliani and George Bush imparted to us, I recommend you do the same thing: Live your lives. Give someone you love a hug and a kiss. Go to a beach with someone you love; I will today. Go to a park, a meadow, someplace unspoiled by hatred. Commune with nature. Talk to God, or whoever you believe the supreme being to be. Write a poem. Most importantly, spread love.

The day may never come, but September 11 can once again be a day where goodness trumps insidious evil, where love defeats hatred, and where happiness reigns upon the Earth. Those are the things that no terrorist can destroy.