in rememberance

In memory of all those lost on 9/11/01 and all those that were left behind, to somehow go on without them. Wishing you peace.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

 ~ Christina Rossetti

I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love. 

~ Leo Buscaglia 

remembering

(source)

November 22, 1963.

Fifty years ago today, I was nine years old and the day began like any other day in my nine year old life. A school morning, seemingly unremarkable and then my favorite subject "lunch time", followed by playing on the playground after lunch, before returning to class for the afternoon. 

If you lived close enough to the school, you were allowed to walk home for lunch. And so it was that one of my classmates went home for lunch on that ordinary morning and returned with the news that our President had been shot and killed. 

I can remember that we were very upset and called our little friend a liar.

Funny how selective the memory is. I have no memory of our teacher or Principal talking to us when we returned to the classroom after lunch. And I can't remember if we just proceeded with the rest of the school day, as usual? Or if we were sent home?

I don't remember anything my mother said to me when I got home from school. I know that sometime after I was home from school that day, my father came home and said to me, "You will never forget this day. You will remember it for always".

I remember seeing so many of the images on television those first few days. Walter Cronkite. Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. The line to see the casket in the rotunda. Little John John saluting. The entire country in shock, grief and mourning.

And as my father had foreseen, I have remembered it, always. A day that changed our lives forever as individuals and as a country.

Remembering my father today also, tomorrow would have been his 95th birthday.