I can't forget this day-Microblog Monday

Billy Joel may have said it best.

"And it's hard to believe after all these years, it still gives you pain and it still brings tears."

I can't forget how beautiful the day was.

I can't forget the frantic calls. "Did you go into the city today?" "Pick up the phone, damn it, "

I can't forget my friend who was in lower Manhattan. She and her husband (then he was her fiancé) live with this day as a day of dust and blood and a miracle of finding each other.

I can't forget my mentor's partner. She kissed her partner goodbye to get on a plane. That plane would be flown into Tower one.

I can't forget how the country came together.
I can't forget how the people who didn't vote for George W. Bush and the people who did all came behind him to hope that he would do good.


And now we hate each other.
We do.
We hate each other with the same virulence that the people who rammed the planes into the towers hated us.

How they must laugh.
They got what they wanted.

They laugh at you.

Whenever you look at someone and think of that person as someone other. Be it LGBTQ, black, asian, hispanic, Trump voter, libertarian, conservative, liberal democrat republican.  If you look at a fellow American and think how they are not like you and not to be trusted you are making the terrorists laugh.  They rub their hands together in glee because we gave them exactly what they wanted.

We divided America.
They didn't.

You think "oh that's other people, I love and respect always." Really? Maybe so. Maybe you're that much better than I am.
I have problems thinking of some as fellow humans.

And I'm trying to stop.

Let this be the day that we reach our hands across the chasm. Maybe we'll shake hands like Sirus Black and Severus Snape, but we can shake each other's hand because we are all Americans. We can be better. We've got to try.

Here is my hand. Outstretched. How can I help you?