343 have been on my heart and my mind all day; as I worked, as I cooked, as I watched the incessant news.
343 who will never again hug their spouses, their mothers.
343 who won’t ever tuck their kids in at night; some of whom never met those children.
343 who had no idea what was going to unfold that day when they went to work, to do their job, not to be a part of history or be brave and heroic and be the stuff of legends.
343 who live in our family’s heart and minds everyday, but especially on days like today.
343 who lived their lives like this:
“Firemen are going to get killed. When they join the department they face that fact. When a man becomes a fireman his greatest act of bravery has been accomplished. What he does after that is all in the line of work. They were not thinking of getting killed when they went where death lurked. They went there to put the fire out, and got killed. Firefighters do not regard themselves as heroes because they do what the business requires.”
-Chief Edward F. Croker, Firefighter Chief of Department, FDNY ((1899-1911), 1865-1951)
I won’t pretend to have the answers. I don’t. I won’t tell you how to feel; I don’t even know how I feel about what happened then and what has happened now. I do know that senseless hatred caused the death of 343 firefighters who were part our family. I know that eight years and one day ago, Bush proclaimed that the mission was accomplished… and the man of my dreams was able to come home and begin a life with me. I’ve been a military wife. I am a firefighter’s wife. I don’t have the answers.
But I will always remember.
[Though I don't have the answers, I encourage you to read Morgan's piece about all of this. I nodded. She said much of what I think, what I believe. I think, perhaps, she just made her upcoming-BlogHer-hug even bigger because of this piece. She's fantastic, even in the not-so-trivial stuff.]
