“9/11” by Mary Marmion O Sullivan, Wickow, Ireland

topic: 9/11 medium: TEXT

as submitted for the “9/11” Open Call

10.00am. He calls. Reaching across the Atlantic as he prepares to leave Baltimore for New York. The everyday domestic caring call while he is away from us on business. “Hold on, I’ll turn the telly down.“I will call you from Manhattan tonight”. “Safe trip”. “Love you”. “yea”.

2.00 p.m. Twin toddlers in rear seat heading into Greystones to collect teen daughter from her first post debs overnight. Conor Cleary is talking to Joe. I reckon it is some review of another apocalyptic movie with Irish interest. THUD. Clery is quiet.

Afternoon September 11the 2001. Filtered news. Bodies falling from impossible heights. What would you do? No mobile connection. All internal flights cancelled. Did he fly. No news is good news. All news is jaw dropping reality. Wait.

Will Bush declare WW3? What will that mean? When is Daddy coming home?

Long phone calls from Baltimore. How I fee about you. How we are the most important to him. Me, twin toddlers, autism, two teens mean more than work. Please come home. He brings heart shaped earrings. Seven long days.

Ten years later. Words are shallow when there is heart hunger. He returned but did not stay. Grief. A limb, a heart, an hour, a life, a way of being. The tallest towers, the comfort of communication, the power of conviction did not sustain. Blind ambition and mind altering motivations cast us adrift.

Do we seek out the oppressor for justice. What is justice? Does revenge avenge? Stocks collapse.

What was important to me ten years ago; family = husband, teen boy, teen girl, young twins. Services for autism and learning disability. Still the same today. Today husband had found a new patch. Teens are young adult immigrants. Twins develop independence. The struggle for services for autism continues. I have grown strong in the wisdom that it can all change in an instant. Somewhere deep inside of me falling man image impacts. What a day can bring. Waste not.

Today I survive as you do who reads this. In whichever way you recall that day, that time, one thing is sure; the human being is resilient and thrives on the warmth of unconditional love far and near.

I am left to consider the folly of certainties. To query ho can be trusted. To assess personal risk. It is not an issue solely for Americans. By America’s global interest we are globally implicated. Global, local and intimate events intertwine in a congruence of universal evolution. Falling man, surviving woman. History continues.