liz_marcs: I Remember Townsend…

liz_marcs: I Remember Townsend…

Read it. I’ll wait.

Done? Good. I’ll be the first to admit I’m one of those American’s that just doesn’t pay attention to politics unless it directly affects me – and as a widowed white SAHM, not much really does in the broad spectrum. I don’t watch the news, I only read the ‘neighborly’ parts of the local paper (online, I don’t even subscribe), I’m more likely to know when Suri’s first pictures came out of who was able to “Make it work” on the latest Project Runway or who is the newest Superhero for Stan Lee. Even though those still have nothing to do with me personally – it allows me to keep a wall around me and mine in some attempt to protect them from the horrors that is the American Government. I’m not completely oblivious, I just choose not to spend all my time fighting the man or for the man. I have much more personal battles to fight.
Today is a day of rememberance for the familys of the 2996 who died and thousands more injured at Ground Zero. Many, many places are remembering, are gathering together to pay tribute, are still searching these five years later for some reason why, and someone to blame. I understand that search to lay blame on a far more personal level then I ever did before. Not because I knew someone there, or lost someone there, but because of my own far to recent personal tragedy.

Losing someone you love, unexpectedly, SUCKS. Losing someone so violently can only suck even more. Part of me, however, feels guilty. I can’t connect with those who of 9-11, and worse – I don’t want to. I avoid all of the tv shows, the movies, the sensationalization, the half-truths and lies of the media, the blogs of tribute today, everything that has happened over the past 5 years.  Part of me doesn’t want to know. Part of me doesn’t care. All of me doesn’t want to have to examine it as closely as it deserves in order to find a personal truth. I have my own demons – I don’t need yours, theirs, the world’s also laid at my feet. I am not strong enough for that.
And even then – someone says “9-11” and I rememeber how MY truth went down, and how part of it is amusing even now because it was *so* Kevin, and how I ache that I’ve lost him, and how horrible the past year has been without him.

That morning he called – at ohmygodEarly – and told me to get up and turn on the TV, he’d call right back. It was something ungodly like 5am here. That detail escapes me, I just remember cussing him out because I should have been able to sleep another 2 hours before getting the kids up for school. I tuned in just as the second plane hit. I was watching as the towers fell. I saw each moment unfold on national tv all throughout the day – the fear for AirForce One, the hit on the pentegon, the terror in faces as the cameras captured every moment of this Life as a Movie event. The blue of the sky, the silence, the crash of the towers – I watched it all. It was unreal – surreal. I was very far removed from it all.

Then Kevin called again – and said “Get the guns. Make sure they’re loaded. I expect us to be hit, and expect Martial law.”

And I laughed. He was upset at me because of it, but man – I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Why the hell would anyone hit Alaska? Seriously? Sure, we’ve got oil, and that’s where he was, but… why? This was centered on the part of America that people think matters – if anything, I worried for my friends in California more then myself. Yet I had to agree to check the guns, and be prepared for an invasion in my tiny town of BFE.

He was so frightened for his family, even as I continued to chuckle everytime he checked that I was prepared. I had gone to town and filled up the jeep with gas. I had made sure that I had bottled water, and batteries and the flashlights handy. I was prepared to grab the kids and head toward Anchorage if they hit the Agruim plant. It was so him, so Kevin, so… pessimistic. But then again, he always watched the news, paid attention, loved political debates almost as much as he loved religious debates – maybe he knew something I didn’t. And still, I laughed.

I didn’t cry about it until I saw the faces of the families, lines of grief stretched across their face, empty terror and agony in the bottomless pits of thier eyes. They never thought it would happen to THEM either. Mothers holding children now made fatherless, as the death tole rose, higher and higher. How I hated the media then – invading these people’s tragedy, forcing their way in to get firsthand reactions to something that should be so personal. And they’ve never stopped – specials on TLC this week include the story as told by the children who lost parents, and I want to scream, to grab the nearest newsguy and shake him.

My grief for Kevin is personal, palpable, and has not subsided since I lost him a year ago. I cannot imagine what these people must feel like seeing snippits of their lives viewed by millions, possible distorted, some achingly real, either way being layed out for the consumption of the masses.

That is my reality. I understand, in part, that their ache is the same as mine. I know that my tragedy will be forever remembered in love by friends, family, those who knew us. I know that my husband’s memory is handled with respect, because I demand it, and because he deserves it.

I am glad I was spared the loss of someone during 9-11. I wish I were spared my personal loss as well. I can only take days one at a time, and avoid what I cannot handle. I am sorry, to those who were directly affected, that my personal tragedy eclipses your own. I can only hope that you have personal friends and family that support you, as I do.

That is the best I can do.