September 11, 2004

Today, I thought I would post something I wrote on the CNN website on New Years Eve 2001. This is and will always remain a sacred day for me.

Three years later we have been shown that this day could have been averted if politicians truly cared about their constituents. 3 years later and this current administration has done nothing to make us safer, but everything to block the truth from coming out.

Following is my post:


I used to work with Cruzie, as he was known at 5 Plaza at Prudential in Newark and would see him most everyday. Since I knew people that he knew, we would bump into each other from time to time at various work functions and at a local place in Newark known as Bellos which we went to after work to celebrate work and social events. Being in the city on September 11, 2001, I like most called out to friends and family to let them know that I was not in harms way, and then began to try and place calls to find out the status of my friends that I knew worked in the towers. All that I knew closely had made it out. I did not know that Cruzie worked on the 101st floor until a few weeks later. My thoughts and prayers go out to Cruzie and all that knew him. He was warm and personable. After reading the profile, my heart goes out to Susan his fiancée of two weeks. I hope you find some bit of closure in this abyss of senselessness. My thoughts are also with all who are spending this holiday alone since people they love are dead or missing. . I know that the huge void left by the missing towers could never compare to the void that must be missing from their lives. My thoughts are also turned to the thousands that have picked up arms to prevent this horrible act from occurring again and the days, months, years, and lifetimes that they may be separated from family and friends.I hate killing things and I hate things being killed. I hate war, and the death, destruction, and starvation which result. I am very conflicted as a result of September 11, 2001.What I do know is that September 11, 2001 will never leave me. The loss to the world was devastating and it is impossible to make any sense out of that kind of violence. As I told my nephew , as we looked upon ground zero on December 24th , 2001, unless you have been to the top of the towers, you will never begin to understand the terror that each of the 3,000 people that perished in those buildings must have faced and the pain that their families must feel knowing that they were forced to face that terror.It saddens me that all around this world, countries are attacked by terrorism, humans are killed for no reason , and that many live in fear, that another attack is an everyday reality. This is not a world I have lived in until September 11, 2001. This is not a world that I wish to live in. I do not wish it for any country or any person even though I may not agree with what they believe. I consider myself a citizen of earth. I hope that someday the things I believe in reach every corner of the earth. As Albert Schweitzer said “Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” I dream of peace for all of the world, and for all mankind. I have shed many tears, and had many sleepless nights since September 11, 2001. I cry when I see the fatherless children, widowed wives, holding babies which will never know their father but will always remember the date Sept 11th. The girlfriends,boyfriends, the friends whose lives have changed We went to work in the warmth of a late summer thinking how blessed we were. We were so wrong.