I can’t quite wrap my mind and heart around the anniversary. Parts of the day and days around that Tuesday morning seem so vivid; others blurry, but not distant.
I was asked, so I wrote a reflection here.
What I didn’t mention was that later in the day I learned why Barbara Olson was on a plane to California. She was going to be on Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher’s show at the time. I had actually been booked for the same show, but had to cancel for a family medical situation (that was by then resolved). Now, I wouldn’t have been flying out of D.C. but New York, so it was not so much that I could have died that day, but had I stayed booked for the program, her life may have been spared. Of course, someone else would have likely died in her place. Years past, as we pray for all those who mourn, and the eternal souls of those who died and family members and friends who have since joined them, it’s an added layer of how fragile life is, how devastating hatred is, and how our lives are so much more intertwined than we realize. I don’t think the pandemic has resulted in making that lesson sink in. As we take some at times draconian measures against COVID-19, we forget that each and every one of us will die, and we don’t know when. Love well!
Anyway, my reflection is here, in case it’s helpful in any way to anyone, as we remember.