September 11.
Today's photo is a detail of the 9/11 memorial on the front lawn of Roswell High School snapped just this afternoon while Loki and I were waiting to pick up the kids.
A lot of feels today. On every 9/11.
I watched the attack on TV from a conference room at my first office job. And when the buildings blossomed in death, my brain snapped back to Challenger, to Oklahoma City, to Centennial Park. To this day, when I see pictures of falling men and people caked in dust, it's hard not to go back there.
I suppose each generation has their trauma. This was one of ours.
A few months later, I heard the lyrics to U2's "Please" in a completely different light as the names of those who died in New York, DC, and Shanksville scrolled the walls of Phillip's arena in 360° of in memoriam:
September, streets capsizing
Spilling over down the drains
Shards of glass splinters like rain
But you could only feel your own pain
October, talk getting nowhere
November, December, remember
We just started again
It was awful to live through. And it can be awful to remember. But like any memento mori, it can also serve as a reminder to make the most of every day. As Epictetus said two thousand years ago:
Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible be daily before your eyes, but chiefly death, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.
