Every one has individual, as well as collective memories of September 11, 2001. It left us all with many emotions and a deep sense of loss, some more profoundly than others. Some people know the pain of surviving.
I am relieved to see people sharing their stories of that day. It feels as though pressure is being slowly released. For 6 years many of us have sustained a strong hold on our individual experiences. Those experiences have taken up residence within our minds, bodies, spirits... and continues to affect our lives. By sharing our individual experiences and harbored emotions, we make our selves vulnerable. (Although sometimes uncomfortable, vulnerability isn’t a bad thing.) By expressing the moments, hours, and days filled with images and pain, we make room within ourselves. We allow healing to begin in a place that can only be opened by expression.
I have recently been urged to understand the connection of the spirit of dog to a human permanently marked by an attack. Two years ago my bottom lip had been removed by a dog I met on a first date. The man was nice enough, his dog... not so much. Petting him (the dog, I mean) seemed innocent enough, until he suddenly growled and lurched at my face. I've since been working on accepting the alteration of the face I knew for 44 years. The past two weeks has led me to feel strongly to understand the spiritual connection.
With the help of a new friend, I believe I understand. From the list he sent, the following are relevant to my own healing: The spirit of dog heals emotional wounds in humans, helps in the understanding of the duality of doubt and faith, companionship, unquestioned loyalty, love, protection, and the ability to smell trouble from a distance. For me, there is relevance in all of this, directly connected to my own healing from 9/11 and it's subsequent events. Perhaps it will hold meaning for others, as well.
When I returned to the Ithaca area, some days after the 11th, my friend Sandy picked me up from the bus depot and took me to the market. I felt as though I had been picked up and set in some random and foreign world. Gone were the eyes resonating shock and pain. People were light on their feet, smiling, laughing... going about their lives as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Standing in a grocery store amidst all of those people, I felt uncertain, perplexed, shocked, and alone. That is where I've remained.
My family refuses to talk about my experience of that day. Even as my dad discussed two of my step-brothers' experiences as they waited to board flights in different parts of the country, he never mentioned me being in Manhattan, responding to the call. Not even to his best friend. In '02, my sister couldn't figure out why I remained mesmerized by anything conceivably relevant. To this day, she hasn't asked about that day in my life. Nor have any of my friends. And the few times in the past 6 years that I attempted to broach the subject with my kids were met with an instant distance. The void others seem to place between themselves and the events of that day just doesn't make sense to me, except to understand that maintaining that void doesn't allow healing.
Release is vital to healing. I have sat down a few times to actually write, and have even been able to get random parts of that day on paper. I've drawn only a few of the images that haunt me. Yet, to this day, I haven't seemed able to purge from my mind and heart. I imagine there are thousands of people out there that have felt the same frustration.
We are all connected, always. That day, the entire world was made aware of the connection we have to each other. We were attacked, in the very foundation of who we are, to the core of what we believed. It doesn't matter if you lived in California, Tibet, Washington, or NY. In mind, we were connected by images and thoughts. We shared so many feelings about the enormity of the situations. Our bodies reflected the same heavy walk we all felt. In Spirit, we were and remain connected by the prayers we sent, the love and compassion we experienced, that we sent to the souls that went to the place unseen.
September 11, 1001 was a catalyst. It opened the world to the awareness of vulnerability and connectedness. Every experience is relevant and important to our healing as a World, a Country, and as an individual. Perhaps, in sharing our experiences, we will open ourselves to begin to allow healing through more channels than the passage of time.
