[Vfw-times] Remembering 9/11

[COkane8116 at aol.com]

   This past year seems to have flown past. I still find it hard to believe. 
I think many people do. I still cannot understand why people commit such evil 
upon each other. I think I never will.

   I have many memories of that day. I remember staring in disbelief at the 
tv screen. I remember standing on my front lawn and clearly seeing the smoke 
from the fires. I remember all my friends online trying to contact me to be 
sure I was still alive. I remember the large funerals at the cemetary not 3 
miles from where I sit and write this now. There were a lot of funerals that 
fall, many with an empty casket.


   In memory of all those who went out and will never be coming back.


   Christian Okane


**************

   12 September 2001

                          That terrible silence
                        ---------------------------

  It's a simple structure that stands across the street from my apartment. 
Two stories tall and made of deep, red brick and gray stone. Two wide roll up 
garage doors stood below a sign that proudly read "RESCUE 1".

 Two engines had called that place home, polished and cleaned by proud 
firemen. I can still picture their faces now, smiling, laughing, talking, 
cleaning or repairing something. I even watched with amusement as a 
television crew filmed this company of New York's bravest. These firemen were 
famous, they always seemed to be rescuing people from crumbling buildings, 
collapsed scaffolding or swimming into a sunken boat to rescue a trapped 
crewman. They were called the bravest of the brave.

   I had long ago lost my amazement at what they did. All I knew was that I 
always seemed to be jolted awake at the most foul hours by screaming horns 
and wailing sirens as red and blue lights danced across my ceiling. Driving 
away all hopes of sleep. Now that it's gone I miss it so.

   Now I stand at my window looking at the people who lay flowers and wreaths 
where the engines once rested. Where I had stood countless times talking and 
chatting with the firemen. Brave souls who had gone out and will never come 
back.

   Sometimes even now I wake up in the middle of the night hoping, praying to 
hear the wail of sirens and the scream of the horns. Instead all I hear is 
that silence. 

   That terrible silence.


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