It is pertinent to discuss 9/11 - an americanism given that to me it was really 11/9 but what the hey - it was their disaster so I will respect their terminology.
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I remember exactly how I heard about what was happening on the other side of the world in the middle of my night. I remember because for the third time in my life a disaster actually affected me personally and directly. The sad thing is I never remember the details of anything like this unless it affects me personally. Sometimes I don't even remember the event at all. All the tragedies and disasters in the world are just text on a newspaper page until they affect us directly. Isn't that just a shame? Oh yes, we follow the news and we sympathise and empathise with the tsunami, fire, famine, hurricane, drought, plane crash and bombing victims. We become immersed in the tragedy for a few days till the next one hits the front page. But we truly only engage in the ones that threaten us directly in some way.
I can remember the whole Princess Diana thing. I stood in my kitchen for hours, rooted to the spot, watching and waiting to see if she lived or died. I watched the funeral procession. But then it was over. I did think of her and sometime still do but only because our eldest children were born within weeks of each other and she was in every magazine at the time. But that is the extent of my memory of the moment. Don't ask me what day or time it was - I do not know.
But, 9/11 affected me because my fiancee (now hubby) and his family were in upstate New York and I had no idea what was going to happen to them. I was terrified. So was he. We had no way of knowing in those first few hours if a nuclear holocaust was coming, or WWIII - which would have meant being drafted for him. He was there, waiting to come here and now all flights were grounded - no way out. A horrible, horrible night for me. If he didnt answer the phone immediately I conjured a million worst case scenarios.... bombs featuring prominently in all of them.
The other 2 times I felt that sense of helplessness and horror happened right here at home. Both many years ago now.
The first time I ever felt it was for a political event. I know, I know, not the earthshattering event one might expect. But is was the history making sacking of a government I felt strong support for. It was 11/11/1975 and I was only 16. We were playing hockey at school on the sports field. I had gone to the toilet and was walking back when all the girls were in a tizzy talking about what had happened. They were joyful because this was an upper class private girl's school so the sacking of a labour government was, to them, a cause for celebration. I was a working class girl whose parents had decided to send to a private school at great expense, and we were Labour supporters living in the western suburbs. I was surrounded by chirping teens and all a I wanted to do was run home and cry. To me, and many people, that day was a tragedy for democracy in our country. I will never forget it.
The second time shook me to my core. 9 August 1987, 9.49pm is the date recorded. But that is not the date I remember . I remember 6.09pm Friday 14 August 1987. That was the precise moment that I found out my beloved friend Vesna was shot 3 times and killed by a mass murderer. I found out from the news broadcast that was covering her funeral earlier that day. 24 years ago and I will never, ever recover from that loss. There is a good reason she is not still alive apart from the pig who shot her. She is not alive because I cancelled our movie date for the night she died. For 18 years I could not drive on Hoddle street. Any Hoddle street anywhere - there are several sitting out there waiting to ambush me. I have managed it since - but only when my job took me there and my office was on the very street where she died. Strangely that place and being there re-connected me to her in my heart. I found myself wishing I hadn't avoided it for so long. The fact was however, that whenever I even approached a street with that name I had a physical reaction so strong that I could not go forward.
I had grieved so hard for her, recriminated so long and ached so deeply for her words of counsel that suddenly being so near brought me face to face with her philosophy of life and I had missed that - I will always remember her gleeful laughter and her piercing mischievous eyes. I will remember how the empathy burned in her eyes as she listened to me tell my stories. She forgave me as she lay dying I know that, it was her nature. But I am still trying to forgive myself. I found no support from family when I revealed this tragedy for they had never heard of her. I had treasured her friendship and kept it private. We had met at work at Centrelink in Northcote - 2 sessional interpreters. I found her there on my first day - we sat on either side of the desk waiting to be called to the service counter. There was a lot of free time and she was a joy to be near.
One day I will recover.
One day we all recover and move on. We take the memory with us and it adds to the tapestry of our makeup. It adds pain but it adds wisdom.
9/11, the Hoddle St Massacre, The Boxing Day Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, war ravaged countries all over the place ....so many many more events all over our fragile globe, every day. Some are natural disasters, some are of man's own doing. We live in a violent world and we are a violent race. Even if we are not perpetrating the violence we find ways to support it, one way or another.
Okay altogether too serious, but now I am watching a football match on the TV as I type and OMG people. You just proved my point. I swear some of those people would tear a bear apart judging from the rage emanating from their mouths...men, women and children alike !!!! Somewhere in that mess of humanity stands my own son - no doubt hurling abuse like everyone else. So I know that not everyone there would perpetuate violence and I know that not everyone there would deserve to suffer from any kind of tragedy. My son wouldn't. Meanwhile I am watching to catch that one in a million glimspe of my baby out there and I am listening to commentary from men who really should have paid attention in English class.
I mean what the eff does "Kicks fluently through the ball" mean, or "sold the dummy" or even "A speculative handball". Ok so each word individually means something to me but seriously are we playing word scrabble where they just pluck whole words out of the bag that is their head and put them down on the board???
Tragedy is a word that bespeaks horrible events. Death and destruction. Well the death and destruction of the English language is a form of tragedy to me too.
So here I sit with 9/11 in my head, Vesna in my heart, a laptop on my knee, a fireplace making my face red with its radiant heat, a coffee going cold and a TV showing a match that pinpoints my son's location at this very moment in time. On mobile Facebook my daughter is reporting progress of her singing group at a festival this afternoon, on the email my husband asks me to record the rugby for him while he is at work this afternoon, on the PC the news is streaming live horrors from all over the world.
I sit here alone in this massive house that is too big for us now, warm comfortable and cosy and remember all the losses and I wonder where the next one will be. Because there WILL be a next one. And life for the rest goes on, as it should, as it has always done. All the moments we remember are gone and there are many to come. We must look forward, hard as it is. We must move forward.
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