Today is the first full day that signals Fall.  It’s dreary, it’s wet.  Yellow leaves from the cherry trees are the first to wobble to the ground, leading the way for the birch and the maple.  The hickory will follow holding on to yellow until it turns a dirty brown.  Only the oak will hold its shriveled leaves until new growth pushes them away in the Spring.  “Time to start again,” Mother Earth insists.

My mind is flitting with all the things I must do today:  volunteer, ASQ meeting, power plant opposition, fit in some prayer and meditation, and then there’s the letter to the editor or post or something calling me, that I must write.  It’s wobbly in my head like the cherry leaves outside:  the power of words.  It’s whisper is so persistent, I wake up at 2 AM.  There’s no time to fit it in today.

I journal, starting with the date:  9/11/14.

• Thirteen years since the New York attack;
• Thirteen years since a plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field;
• Thirteen years since terrorists breached the Pentagon.

Thirteen years.

I had three grandchildren then, I have fourteen now. None remembers a time when terrorism was not a part of our collective consciousness.   Their lives always included a war in the Middle East, a prayer on Sunday for our serviceman, a parade for a returning soldier.

 

What must it be like to live everyday in those war-torn countries?  How many children are born  who know first-hand the ravages of war, no memory of peace?   Hope for an end to violence, pray their mothers will return from the market, and mourn at gravesites.

How many watch and wait as signs around them point to more of the same chilling bleakness.  How long must we wait for new growth to push through and promise a better year?