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     One Year Later....

Many years ago, Diana Ross threw a free concert in Central Park my Aunt Penny decided she would take me.  We were only a couple hours away from the City in Newburgh, New York, so we took the train up.  My anticipation was mounting as we reached Union Station.  I couldn’t wait to get there and I know I was probably getting on her nerves asking a more than a thousand questions.  The City itself beckoned to me.  I had only been there a couple times before with my grandmother to go to Rev. Ike’s church.  But on those trips I could only see the city from the car window.  We never got out and walked anywhere.  “It’s too dangerous,” my grandmother would say as she hustled me in and out of the church each time.  I longed to be able to feel the energy of the street, go into some of the shops, and eat a hot dog from the man on the street corner.  My Aunt Penny and I rode the subway into Brooklyn to meet her friend and I was ecstatic.  I looked into the faces of each and every person on the subway car.  I wondered where they were going, or what they were leaving.  I noticed each and every sample of graffiti on the walls and on the cars and in my mind labeled them art.  I was exactly where I wanted to be.  My hometown was boring and humdrum.  Nothing exciting ever happened there and I barely paid attention to Diana as she sang, “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough.”  I was too busy absorbing as much of the city in as possible.

            It began to rain and so we hurriedly ran to the subway.  It was packed and Penny held my hand tight as we made our way back to Union Station.  A block away from the station we came across a man lying in the street.  It was only drizzling rain now and though people were noticing him, they were stepping over him and no one stopped to help him.  He didn’t look like one of the bums I had seen throughout the day.  He was dressed in a suit, like maybe he had been on his way to or from work.  I couldn’t believe that no one would stop to see what was wrong with him.  It seemed people were so caught up in where they were going or what they were doing; they had lost the ability to feel compassion.  On the train ride home all I could think of was how my perception was now changed about New York.  I never wanted to go there again and I haven’t been there since.  Through the mind of a child I thought:  How could a city be so cold? 

            I felt that way until September 11, 2001.  I hadn’t visited there since I was a young girl, but I found that it visited me nightly by way of interviews and television shows.  I watched and cried with people that I didn’t know and my heart went out to them.  The tragedy sucked me in and consumed me for weeks.  It was all I thought about and I found myself praying constantly.  I eventually stopped watching the news altogether, it was worse than a horror movie to me. When I was in the grocery store, I would automatically connect with the cashier and we would share some story or reveal the latest news to one another.  My family became my main priority because the reality of just how short and precious life is, became crystal clear. 

            I have often heard that when God wants your attention he will get it no matter what.  Prior to 9/11, the world was in disarray and even though the tragedy happened at the hands of terrorists, it was the mercy of God that swept over the country and ushered in healing.  He took the coldest city in America and turned it into a focal point for love and compassion.  Through pain and healing we have developed a greater understanding of mankind.  There is no part of my being that was not affected by 9/11.  No part of me that does not recognize the depth of the catastrophe and yet when I look into the faces of my neighbors and people in my community, I feel a greater connection to them than ever before.  It began as a wave of terror that started in the heart of New York and it moved throughout the world touching the young and old from any and every nationality.  In magazines and photos since the event, we have seen a rainbow of hope represented in such a way that you can’t help but be changed by it.  People have a new found respect for this thing called life.  How precious it is.  How very short it can be.

            Last week it was raining really hard.  I got off early from work and I decided to go straight to my kids’ bus stop so they wouldn’t have to walk home in the rain.  I had been waiting for about 15 minutes when a young white lady passed by me in a black truck.  She got half way down the street and turned into her driveway.  Less than a minute passed and she came back, pulling up beside me and rolling her window down.  I did the same even though I wasn’t sure what she wanted.  “Are you okay?  You aren’t having car trouble are you?”  I told her that I was fine, just waiting for the bus.  As she drove away, I noticed a sticker of the American flag in the window.  It read:  We will never forget.  The understatement of the century considering the fact that we are forever bound in memory by an event that struck the very fiber of a nation.  It struck so deep that it went beyond color and social status.  It touched the areas of hope in people’s lives that had lain dormant.  One year later I am remembering my visit to New York and how in one day my mind was again changed.  But I would like to think that even though our world, like the Twin Towers, was shaken up and torn down, we have emerged from the rubble a more compassionate community.  A community less likely to pass by a brother or sister on the street in need of help without stopping to at least offer a helping hand.  Ya feel me?

                                                                 by Bridgette Hogan
                                                                   Ya feel me?  
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Bridgette is a contributing writer of Blacksonville.com