THE LIVING FORGET ALL TOO QUICKLY_SAMUEL CLEMENS, GHOST

{"It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man,

all unprepared,

can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live.

There is but one reasonable explanation of it.

The intellect is stunned by the shock

and but gropingly gathers the meaning of the words

The power to realize their full import is mercifully lacking."- Mark Twain.}

All the talking plastic faces from your fancy television screens seem to want to have their say on September 11th today.

I ... I almost could not bring myself to speak on it. Not on this day.

The dark winds of the Shadowlands are filled with the wailing of the lost souls remembering the horror, panic, and fear of their dying.

The shadows will soon be quiet.

I look about the land of the living and know most will have shrugged off the remembrance aside by tomorrow ...

if it has even occurred to them today.

Old news. Bills to pay. Lives to live.

There is too much tragedy each heartbeat of each day for us to hold onto any one moment of keening for long ... especially if it is not our pain.

No pain is so easy to bear as the other fellow's.

Yet the world is drowning in tragedy.

The rain forests are still burning, and our attention span has turned off the smoke detectors.

An African child's emancipated face wails on our TV screen, and we change the channel.

In Yemen, an eight year old girl, bless her poor ravaged soul, dies from internal injuries on her "wedding night"

http://www.examiner.com/article/yemen-8-year-old-girl-dies-from-internal-injuries-on-wedding-night

and

we turn to the "more interesting" cyber article on how VOGUE dropped that gal, Miley Cyrus, from their cover for bucking about as if her pants were filled with ants.


The Twin Towers were gutted by planes filled with screaming passengers.

And today a mosque for the faith whose zealots masterminded the mass murder has been erected right by the site.

Each day we pass individuals who are struggling with their own private 9-11, and we hurry by, perhaps irritated by their slow pace or distant, inward directed eyes.

We honor the valiant, the orphaned, and the murdered of 9-11 when we remember that tragedy has a very long shelf-life

and act with compassion towards each person we meet, knowing that everyone is having a harder time than they appear.
***