Requiescat In Pace: Remembering the Fallen of 9/11

It’s odd, isn’t it? People die every day and the world goes on like nothing happened.
But when it’s a person you love, you think everyone should stop and take notice.
That they ought to cry and light candles and tell you that you’re not alone.

~ Kristina McMorris

T

ragedy has a way of stopping time. 

The event is over in seconds, yet to the stunned psyche, moments are magnified, speech becomes slow and slurred, a million images flash on the screen of memory, and it’s all over.

Then begins the slow work of recovery, both physical and emotional.

Today, we remember those who died eleven years ago today: those at the Twin Towers, and the first responders, the heroes of Flight 93, and the men and women who died at the Pentagon.

May their families be comforted and may we honor their memory by living lives of strength and peace.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

The City of Sleep
("The Brushwood Boy" -- The Day's Work)
Rudyard Kipling

Over the edge of the purple down,

  Where the single lamplight gleams,

Know ye the road to the Merciful Town

  That is hard by the Sea of Dreams --

Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,

  And the sick may forget to weep?

But we -- pity us! Oh, pity us!

  We wakeful; ah, pity us! --

We must go back with Policeman Day --

  Back from the City of Sleep!

Weary they turn from the scroll and crown,

  Fetter and prayer and plough --

They that go up to the Merciful Town,

  For her gates are closing now.

It is their right in the Baths of Night

  Body and soul to steep,

But we -- pity us! ah, pity us!

  We wakeful; ah, pity us! --

We must go back with Policeman Day --

  Back from the City of Sleep!

Over the edge of the purple down,

  Ere the tender  dreams begin,

Look -- we may look -- at the Merciful Town,

  But we may not enter in!

Outcasts all, from her guarded wall

  Back to our watch we creep:

We -- pity us! ah, pity us!

  We wakeful; ah, pity us! --

We that go back with Policeman Day --

  Back from the City of Sleep!



Writing Tragedy and Hope

Easy reading is damn hard writing.
~ Nathanial Hawthorne

Lately my writers group has been unable to meet due to distance and schedules. So we assigned each other writing assignments via email. Mine was to imagine a conversation between the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski and a relative of one of the Katyn Forest Massacre victims as they flew to Smolensk April 10, 2010. I am almost at 2,000 words into the project and I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Hawthorne.

This assignment is both difficult and a joy. The Katyn Forest Massacre has always captured my imagination and inspired great emotion ~ as has most of Poland's history. And not just because my father is Polish. It is a history rife with suffering and tragedy and the sheer stubborn will to survive. When I heard about the plane crash on Saturday, April 10, my first reaction was of fascinated horror. Good God! How much suffering can one nation endure? And the irony of the "accident" ~ Polish dignitaries dying on the way to a memorial service for murdered Polish dignitaries from 1940 ~ was not lost on anyone with a knowledge of history.

In doing this writing assignment, I found that I had to fight to keep a certain distance from it. Personal emotions kept blurring the lines ~ literally. It is difficult to type while wiping one's eyes and blowing one's nose. But the emotions and thoughts about this latest tragedy are nothing compared to my other writing project: an intimate story based on my father's experiences during the Nazi occupation of Poland in the 1940s and his time spent in a labor camp in Germany and his subsequent liberation.

This project is born of a deep love and admiration of my father, and the desire to share with others what a great man he is. And writing about the Katyn Memorial plane crash helped to open up some literary and emotional obstacles that were making writing my father's story difficult. God willing I will be able to complete this second project in time for him to read it.

May God be with the Poles during this time of great mourning. St. Stefan, ora pro nobis! St. Vladimir, ora pro nobis!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela