9/11

Sophie is taking the IVIG infusions well on the third day. She has one more treatment tomorrow and is then off for a month. Nurse H is a lovely person. I have learned so much about her life as a Korean immigrant and much about her now-grown children and her grand-children. She has shared some very personal things with me, and that is fine. She sits curled up on Sophie's bed, not much bigger than Sophie but holding so much quiet strength and faith and purpose. I found myself sitting quietly with Sophie, my anxiety lessened for the first time in many weeks.

It's still 9/11 and I'm still remembering the restaurant workers my husband knew who threw themselves out of the burning building and fell 102 stories down. I'm remembering all the brave firemen and women, those who perished while trying to save others. I'm remembering the 2976 innocent Americans who died that day, and the 48,644* Afghanis and the 1,690,903* Iraqis and the 35,000* Pakistanis who have also died as payment for crimes they did not commit. A life is a life is a life.


Rosh Hoshanah

i bear witness to no thing
more human than hate

i bear witness to no thing
more human than love

apples and honey
apples and honey

what is not lost
is paradise

Lucille Clifton, from September Suite, 2001














*Numbers dead are estimates