So much of what I do now is tainted by September Eleventh. At the amusement park, I take my son on a ride that climbs high into the sky. But, at the top, when I should be laughing with him, I’m instead looking down from two hundred feet up. Wondering what it was like for those who jumped from the World Trade Center, terribly higher.

At home, we put up Halloween decorations but I still find myself numb. Wondering how I will ever be scared by a werewolf again when the monsters we’ve seen lately have looked so human.

Or when I put my daughter to bed. I kiss her forehead and whisper a prayer that there won’t be more attacks. That she’ll never have to taste that fear.

And that is what my days have been like, as I struggle to see beauty in a world that, for a moment, betrayed us. Because, like you, my heart has been broken by jet engines.

But I also know that we have a choice. In each moment, the gift of decision waits. Where we decide what we see, and whether life or death will cast the grander shadow.

So, next time, at the top of the ride, maybe I’ll find a way to only know that I’m holding my son and he’s laughing and I love him. And maybe he’ll turn his eyes up to mine and tell me that he loves me, too.

And, somehow, we’ll help each other heal. Not easily and not quickly. But, as in all grief, through our moments.
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Copyright 2001, Jim R. Warda. All rights reserved. Taken from his free weekly Internet column, "Where Are We Going So Fast? – Online." Subscribe to the column at www.wherearewegoingsofast.com and contact him at jwarda@wherearewegoingsofast.com.
Jim is a member of the Pocket Parent Speakers' Bureau and the author of the book, "Where Are We Going So Fast?: Finding the Sacred in Everyday Moments'' (Sheed & Ward, with a Foreword by Jack Canfield). He is a speaker and contributor for Chicken Soup for the Soul and the "Chicago Tribune," and a former board member of the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative. You can order his book from amazon.com by clicking here: