As I am sure is true for
most of us I vividly remember the televised scenes of the first plane flying
into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. It was sometime between
0700-0730 Denver time and I was getting ready for work. It quickly became
obvious that this was a terrorist attack and not an accident. I distinctly
remember saying to my partner David: “boy, there are going to be a lot of Arab
people die for this”. It was most certainly not a wish of any sort on my part
that mostly Muslim middle-eastern folk needed to pay but rather was said with
sad resolve. I knew in my gut that the revenge our country would exact would
most certainly track along the lines of an “eye for an eye”, a response very
lacking in compassion.
One would assume that an
“eye for an eye” would involve retribution on those directly responsible. That
is not how it actually turned out however. Oh, I did follow with great interest
and perhaps even a bit of vengeful glee the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden in the
rugged mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the completely falsified
case made to invade Iraq soon made me realize there were very nefarious motives
afoot and totally fabricated by the powers that be, our duly elected leaders of
the day. I never bought the propaganda so widespread at the time that “they
hated us for our freedoms”. Now fifteen plus years into the “war on terror” the
millions of deaths of so often innocent men, women and children directly
related to that ‘war on terror’ has given generations of people a reason to
hate us.
By September of 2001 we
were really just finally coming out of the nightmare that had been AIDS for the
past nearly twenty years. I was well into my twenty-one-year stint as the
nursing manager of the AIDS Clinic here in Denver. Perhaps it was my first-hand
experience with deaths’ by the hundreds of mostly young and vibrant folks from
HIV infection that helped inform my own emotional and intellectual response to
the tragedy of 9/11. The deaths of those on the planes were certainly quick if
not immediate, though the minutes before and the realization of what was to
occur must have been unbelievably horrific.
The death I had become
all too familiar with in the two decades before 9/11 was often very protracted
and painful over months and sometimes years. My own HIV infection was turning
around thanks to the new meds but it was certainly not assured that I would not
succumb and die a death similar to so many others I had known and cared for. I
do remember pondering on occasion whether or not a very sudden death in a plane
crash was not a preferable way to go. Remember nobody gets out alive and
perhaps it is a most wonderful gift to be able to call a halt to it all on your
own accord.
I was though somewhat
reassured by the amount of empathy I was able to muster for the 9/11 victims
and most certainly for the pain their surviving friends and family members were
feeling and undoubtedly still do today. Twenty years of watching lovers,
friends and hundreds of others I had come to know in a caregiving role die so
often very shitty deaths had apparently not completely hardened my soul.
Maybe those many hours on
the cushion, most often unsuccessfully trying to focus on my breath, had paid
off after all. Or maybe it is just the result of the privilege of getting
older. I see my empathy for all sentient beings increasing over time. Having
started out as quite the self-centered little prick I find this empathic
evolution a validation for this whole amazing opportunity of having manifested
into a human form. Sixty-eight years into the trip and I am still here- one
lucky son-of-a- bitch I’d say.
© February 2017
About
the Author
I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised
on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40
plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS
activist. I have currently returned to
Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.
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