There are some Americans today who silently open a door into their storeroom of memories. They’re pulling out the file dated for September 11, 2001. Some files are long and others short. Some are stained with tears more than others. But all of us who are old enough to remember stand with our own file in hand, reading the lines of our lives that we’ve memorized. We know where we stood and what we felt and thought.
My file writes of a day in the life of a homeschooler. It tells of a nine year old and her mom, sitting on a blue couch with a science book in their laps. The text is smudged in my mind, but I think it reads photosynthesis. Maybe that’s because of a picture on file. There on the side of the text, the girl eyes a green leaf laying under sunlight. She isn’t good at science. Can’t reason in her mind what she can’t see happening. . .how energy is made. But maybe she learns it best that day in the worst of ways- how energy can fuel its way to West 7th Street, through the sky of Arlington County, and over to a field in Pennsylvania. How it fuels its way to the phone call that places her mom at the end of the dining room table, with a look of dismay.
With her sister, she sits by an old black boombox on her knees in the other room. The pentagon has been hit. She runs to her mom who still holds the phone in hand. Like many nine year olds, she wants to be the one to say it first. She has news and it’s important; and so she says it, almost holding her breath. She listens as her mom repeats the words to whoever is on the other end of the phone call.
The girl purses her lips and scowls, trying to empathize. Trying to feel and act like everyone else, she joins in the rush of shockdom. But what is the pentagon anyways? She has no idea what’s really happening just hours away from home. And what is a terrorist? At first she gets it confused with luggages and vacation. Like all the people traveling to see the new sites. Like a tourist, she wants to travel to the Statue of Liberty; but caution has suddenly taken a seat in her heart and it stays for a while.
The memory doesn’t write much more for that day. All that’s left is a sister walking through the front door, arriving home from college class earlier than usual, and a moment as the girl is sent to bed that night, catching images of a tv screen filled with towers of smoke. Some images seem too harsh to read out loud right now. Without the ability to grasp the extent of terror and grief that bore into so many hearts, the memory is filed away, written with the thoughts of a young mind.
Tears-those are written in memories of a few years later. And so, I step back up to the cabinet, rummage through my mind. Find a file for 2004. When 9/11 was like a pebble that had spread grief in ripple effects. The girl is at the marketplace. She holds the newspaper her mom just purchased. The file reveals a picture that she cannot shake from her memory of war. Prisoners treated in grotesque fashion. It’s difficult to read. A newfound anger is typed all over that file, and sadness grows deeper roots.
Here is another one, almost out of place or perhaps, the best in place. Call it childlike optimism; but I’ve found a memory all crinkled and blotched, with no date to be filed under. Not sure when it was stored. It’s a small account of lingering grace words that float on a melody along a still street in New York. It’s almost as if a storm has just ended; or perhaps it’s the eye of a storm. The earth stands calm and somewhat dazed. A famous hymn that the mouths of Americans cry out as their hearts cry. Just a moment, one moment. I want to call it unity. One moment that reads like peace amidst chaos. It’s hard to tell.
Even today, I choose to store more folders in this same cabinet. These ones have been stained with new tears as I watch the media through old footage online. I hear love as the last word every heart is eager to speak. And I weep, gathering what a nine year old could not. And I store these dust-covered images and voices, listening to the pain. But sometimes in these sad files, I find images of something bigger than the evil- like a leader standing in the rubble with the hurting and selfless. Like sacrifice that’s weary, but determined. Like fear and panic that are held in the compassionate arms of a stranger.
I find sorrowful memories giving rise to inspiring ones. I find the weight of brokenness heavy here. But I also find it pressing like a wine press upon the One who promises life and justice. I lay files yet again in the hands of the wounded Christ. Here in this store room of memories I find Him near those who grieve today. Sometimes I whisper for Him to come back soon. Here in the stillness of memories, we wait expectantly for the groanings of an old world to grow silent.
In the meantime, I promise myself to keep opening the files. Remember the afraid who were brave. Remember the ones who ignored the command to stay out of those crumbling buildings. Remember the ones who said yes to love, and turned to face the danger. Remember the tears of loved ones. Find a reflection of His heart there in the faces and thank God for them. Honor them and bring the memories you’ve stored out into the open air. Share them with the generations that call it history now. And never forget.
Just This. 