The Memory Lives On

The Memory Lives On
By Bobbi Rightmyer


I was going through a rough spot in my life
in between jobs from birthing babies to elderly care.
I finally had the day off and after seeing my family off to school and work,
I settled in to enjoy the TODAY show.
No sooner did I have my nest made when the first plane hit the first tower.
Was it a horrible accident?
Had something gone terribly wrong?
Or were we under attack from a growing terror
we’ve kept on the back burner too long?
Bomb drills and survival skills raced through the edges of my mind
as I tried to comprehend what was going on.
Never one for telephone calls, I detested using the phone,
but I needed to have some answers
so I picked up the receiver to make my first call.
My hubby wasn’t quiet to work yet, but still on his long commute
and he turned on the radio to listen.
Still in shock, I was on the phone again with my soul sister Linda Loo,
when the next tower was hit.
What the hell is going on?
What do we do?
Why hasn’t the Emergency Broadcast System made an interruption –
they interrupt programming when the wind blows the wrong way?
Throughout the next hours I was glued with horror
to the images coming from the frosty screen.
Airplanes,
box cutters,
terrorist attacks – how is this happening in the great USA?
And why is Bush Jr.,
our Commander in Chief,
reading a book upside down to the children all around?
Why doesn’t he do something – anything to make the horror stop?
Our lives will never be the same again, our freedom has been threatened.
I feel I dug a hole that day to bury myself away,
but all the pain and suffering in my personal life just no longer seems to compare.
And now it’s eight years later and the New York skyline remains ruptured –
our tribute to the terrorist,
by our lack of cohesive structure.