memorial

Me, personally. I do not know a soul who perished that day of 9/11. But it did then, does now, and I imagine it always will bring out the Patriot in me.

As if on cue, a line of silhouettes emerged from behind a desert scrub__hapes that moved like cats. They wandered through the landscape of corpses, touching each with a gentle nudge. They grew closer, and it became clear that Chuluum was leading the other cats on their sorrowful homage, giving the fallen librarians the honor they deserved.

I shouldn't have taken a vow of silence, I told myself. What did I want? Nothing much. Just a memorial. But what is a memorial, when you come right down to it, but a commemoration of wounds endured? Endured, and resented. Without memory, there can be no revenge.

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.From an Irish headstone

[Josiah P. Mendum memorial at Paine Hall][He turned] the strait-laced Boston of sixty years ago [into] the enlightened Hub of today, . . . to 'destroy bigotry and uproot the evils of superstition.

He hadn't woken a day since my death when the day wasn__ something to get through. But the truth was, the memorial service day was not the worst kind. At least it was honest. At least it was a day shaped around what they were so preoccupied by: my absence. Today he would not have to pretend he was getting back to normal__hatever normal was.

Forever my light shines on you brightly;Love from above, I will send to you nightly.