As I compose this letter the tragedy unfolding has gotten the better of me, dragging out the dregs of my compassion. Everything has come to a standstill in this Fortune 500 company of 7,000 employees to witness the terrorism which continues to fall upon us.
At first, I heard the news on the radio, but it was not until I saw the telecast that fear and disgust and misery riled up through me. Tears wallow waiting to fall with thoughts of the thousands departed, murdered (it is wrong to pacify this horrible atrocious incident.) As I relate this to family on the West Coast, every time I try to say that it is likely everyone in this city knew someone in those towers, I get choked up and I have to pad my cheeks dry. I am almost incredulous when I hear people say something about the structural damage without any sign of sympathy for the lives lost, perhaps they are in shock.
As I am merely human, the screen of absolute horror keeps pulling me away. My colleagues and I simply sit staring at each other, with the exception of the loquacious one, who consoles her despair by airing thoughtlessness, words without meaning which would usually otherwise grate against me, but which are now proving to be somewhat soothing in their incoherence.
All my manliness is proving no defense against my utter desire to sob. I had to go into the bathroom to wash away the heat of grief with cold water.
Immobility overwhelms me. People are unifying for few a minutes to muse upon the meaning of all this, and then quickly disperse returning to solitude and calls of consolation to family and friends.
Just speaking with my family swells the emotion which I often repress. Alongside the sincere tattering of woes I have for all the victims, I immediately feel an immense appreciation for being alive.
In the past, I have declared mediocrity as my greatest fear. But now, now I truly have something to be scared of, if not for my own well being it is for a loved one or ones that may have been lost. The esoteric threats to the little meaning of my life are petty in comparison to the reality that mortality itself is but meaning enough to ponder.
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l.m