Never Forget

I'm glad that it rained today. I was able to work without wanting to burst into tears.

Do you remember where you were 6 years ago? What you were doing? Do you remember what the following weeks were like? How we forgot our differences. How proudly we flew the flag, how much we wanted to help others, even strangers. How our hearts broke with every news story, picture or even a brief thought?

I made a conscious effort not to glue myself to the TV. I didn't read much of the newspaper accounts and stuck to my regular radio stations. True be told I'm not much of a media hound. And knowing myself, I couldn't take alot of what was being reported.

There were a few instances where I wanted to smash a TV 'news' person. The one that stands out still makes me furious! A gather of was to being held at City Hall in Boston with Christian, Jews and Muslim religious leaders attending as part of a 'healing' service. I was sitting in my doctor's office, which helped me to keep my anger in check. The TV was on and some idiot was 'ON THE SCENE LIVE!!!!' answering question from the anchor back in the studio when the anchor asked the most idiotic, asinine, unknowledgeable, inexcusable question. This person asked 'If any Muslims have shown up yet?' and did it with not only a smile on their face but in their voice!

Of course, we all walk around with our religion stamped on our forehead so we can be readily identified as a Jew or Christian or Buddhist in a crowd. I must give the on the scene person credit because even he was stunned by the question. He did recover pretty quickly and give a short answer but for me that was the point that I noticed attitudes started to change.

When my doctor came into the exam room his phone was ringing and when he answered the poison that spewed out from it shocked me! He is not Muslim, he is not Iranian and he does not support terrorists. I so wanted to grab his phone, crawl through it and stuff my fist down the throat of the caller for being so ignorant! Instead, I apologized. I apologized for an American!

So here, we are 6 years later, more hated then ever. Fighting a war in 2 different countries, a war we can't win or even break even in. And we have forgotten. Forgotten the random acts of kindness we did in the weeks after. Forgotten the innocents lost and the innocents left behind.

Instead I see blind bigotry, blind following and outright hatred. So I'm glad it rained today.