Scattered thoughts on 9/11

I can't believe it has been ten years since 9/11.  TEN YEARS.

One year for Christmas (years before 9/11) my older sister Kristy gave me a pocket atlas, among other things.  On the front cover was a picture of the twin towers in New York... I still have that atlas and whenever I pick it up, I look at it a little longer.  I'm not sure if I even knew what the buildings were when Kristy first gave it to me.

Out of all the songs that came out in the wake of 9/11, Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning" was by far the best.  Very well-written song.  The other country music tributes, as I remember, were infinitely inferior.

There was a movie that came out about 9/11; it involved the rescuing of someone and an inside look at the passengers who prevented the plane from hitting the White House.  I had no desire to watch the movie... images get to me, they sink in deep.  If it's something frightening or disturbing in any way, it sticks to me. I didn't want to see any more detail about the towers collapsing on top of people.  For the same reason, I thank the Lord and my guardian angel that I never saw footage of people jumping out of the buildings.  The image of the towers collapsing on the news is enough.

My mom woke me up that morning when the first plane hit.  Still, I went to school.  My history professor gave the class a choice: either hold class as normal, to focus our minds on something else, or turn on the news.  We watched the news the whole time and the class was collectively in shock.

Did anyone see this coming?  Even though the first Iraq war wasn't all that long before 9/11, the fight never came to us.  Not since Pearl Harbor!  What a blessing it was, for the United States to be safe for 60 years.  A luxury, really, if you look at other places in the world.

There was a priest who died giving the last rites to a fireman.  He was a chaplain for the firemen.  And he never saw it coming... but he died doing his duty, fulfilling the vows he took when he was ordained.  Is there a death more honorable?

Our Lady of the Lake

In a somewhat-related tribute to the start of Notre Dame's football season, here's a quick post on my visit to Lourdes, France, way back in 1999.  The full name of that university in South Bend, IN is Notre Dame du Lac, which is French for "Our Lady of the Lake."  And Lourdes is in France.  Close enough, right?  

To be honest, I'm surprised that something didn't happen to me on that trip to Lourdes.  I took the Chunnel from London to Paris, then hopped on a train to Lourdes.  Before I left, I asked for a little help from one of the French students.  I spoke maybe a few words of French--"sacre bleu," which was in "Beauty and the Beast" (still don't know what it means) and "merci," which is easy enough.  My understanding of French was far less.  That is, zero.  That friend tried to tell me how to converse in a basic conversation but I quickly realized its futility.  I could speak in flawless French but if I didn't understand what was being said to me in response, what use was it?  So my friend graciously wrote down a few travel-related phrases; including the very ironic "I don't know French."  

I arrived in the Lourdes train station at 8 pm local time and it was much darker than I would've preferred.  I didn't have a hotel booked, since I was under the impression that there were a billion hotels there.  That turned out to be true... but this was November, not the peak tourist season.  I walked for about ten minutes, my anxiety increasing with each passing moment.  By the grace of God, I spied a small hotel that was open.  I walked in, was roughly able to communicate with the attendant, and went upstairs to my room.  

At this point, I was very unsettled.  The ratio of normal minutes to anxiety-filled minutes is similar in kind to the human years to dog years ratio.  Still, for wandering around for hours (on the anxiety-filled minutes scale), I was okay.  I had a place to sleep other than the train station.  No problem now!

Until I couldn't lock the door to my room.  It was one of those old-fashioned keys/keyhole things and I couldn't lock the door for the life of me!  Back on Anxiety-Filled Standard Time.  It took a while to sleep, and ultimately I fell asleep out of pure exhaustion.  

The next day I went souvenir shopping and spent a lot of time in the Grotto.  It was truly one of the most powerful spiritual experiences in my life.  I felt so loved!  So special!  I sat inside the cave itself, on one of the benches, praying rosary after rosary for about two hours.  

I don't mean to glance over the good part and relish in the craziness that preceded it.  The craziness makes for a fun story to tell.  The catch about the good part--how much more can I say about it?  I prayed, I felt loved, I felt like Our Lady was looking at me like her favorite--er, second favorite--child.  There weren't a lot of people there (others knew better than to travel to a mountain town in late November) but I felt like the Blessed Mother set everything up that weekend just for me.  The details may be sparse but the power was in its simplicity.  

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!  St. Bernadette, pray for us!