It’s hard to believe seven years have passed. I’ve no more wisdom or insight now than that Tuesday, at least none other than that passed on by my father. He, one of his family’s few Holocaust survivors, returned to Europe with the U.S. Army in 1944…and was shot and injured when his unit approached one of the first camps to be liberated. When asked about the war, he’d look at me sternly - and say nothing. Mere days before he died I asked him once again, and his words have guided me since the day I stood - a year and a half later - at the intersection of Liberty & Nassau streets.
And looked up. Then ran.
He said to be grateful for what one has. Not to complain, or carry debt, or hold the future hostage to the past. To cherish every day one has even a moment free, to live with disappointment but not regret, to live the life of no less than one man’s dream - that being one’s own and no others.
He didn’t quite put it in those words, of course. They’re those of a mournful son whose gratitude and respect for his father have grown every day since it was too late to say so.
I - since that Tuesday morning seven years ago - have been lucky enough to live the lives of two, five, even ten men, and although I’ve never been religious, I found faith. In karma. In people. In the friends and family who gave me what can’t be bought. In the strangers who - in a long series of events that to anyone else might appear as miracles - became friends.
No one can take from me that which I value the most, nor can I share it in any way other than by doing as my father did, and by trying to live up to the hard-won words he knew to be true, and I failed to appreciate until September 11th.
Several people I knew were lost that day, as were several strangers in the cloud through which we stumbled and fled. Best known to me was Andy Golkin, with whom I shared mutual friends whose love for him was sufficient for us to talk as if we too shared long histories…but this was to occur only once, in Miami, more than a year before the towers fell.
I feel strange guilt that one night each year when his parents and friends gather for a fund-raiser in his name, for no matter how much I may support it, I still feel as if my presence - let alone the invitation - may not have been earned…my relationship with him too distant, even by the transitive property of close friendship. There is one thing that bring me solace, however, and I think one has to have lost someone very close to grasp it, for each year, when for a brief moment I catch the attention of Andy’s father, I see in his face so much of my own father, lost to me now more than eight years ago, and I wonder, and hope, and struggle in that moment to let him know - in one of those rare instances when I don’t mask my feelings through laughter - that I understand why my father didn’t want me to take the subway, or drive too powerful a car, or sleepover at the house of a friend unknown to him.
I’m the luckiest person I know. My sole regret is that I didn’t tell my father when I had the chance.
Well said, Alex. With all that’s attached to 9/11, it’s important to remember that real people were lost, and how we should cherish each other and the time we have here.
Too many times we either think things we never say, or we take the things we do have for granted. “I love you Dad” is not nearly heard enough among our society today, and that is a damn shame. Many of us stumble through life with no direction (which is fine) and almost no one takes the time out of our honestly not-so-busy days to call a friend and say “thank you for being my friend” or to call your mum or dad and say “Thank you. I love you.” Sometimes it takes devastating events like the murders of Sept 11 01 for us all to step back from the complacent and mostly thankless lives we all live and actually thank our close friends and family and those that care about us. I’m sure your father is very proud of you “Charles Jr” for your accomplishments in both your personal, professional, and celebrity lives you live and if he was still with you today I think you are one of the only people I know who would routinely ring your father up or stop by his house just to say “I love you Dad!” I hope even just one person from reading your words about your father and thinking about what I have said will thank their friends and their family for being there for them much more often than waiting for such a terriable thing as what happened to your city 7 years ago. Life is much too short for all of us to not be thankful for the things we do have. That holiday in November that is designed for us to actually slow down and take a look at what we are thankful for has even turned into a time for football and eating too much turkey and cobbeler. We shouldn’t wait for one day a year to be thankful for what we have, we should all be much more thankful every single fucking day we are blessed to be able to breath another breath and walk this world with our friends and family.
I love you Alex. You’re a great friend.
Thanks, Dr. Gruene.
Since we’re being loquacious…
What makes each year different than the last? Each year I get older, yet feel younger. Those around me loose their hair, gain weight, and determine their happiness on something that eludes them. The smartest people I know have the ability to step outside themselves, do some self analysis, and know what it is they want. Take a birds-eye view of how to get there, aim their feet and with map and compass take their jaunt; taking their life by the reigns, yanking tightly, and not allow chance or happenstance to rear its ugly head.
There is such beauty in a person that is willing to fall, dust-off, and get back on, and go for it again. I’m not talking self improvement or thrill-seeking exploits, but rather an internal desire to grow as a person to see, feel, or experience something new and leave another groove in their LP of life. Willingly take-on another scrape or scar to show they have been somewhere others have yet to go. Ironic to find out from another’s book that I’m my own “driver”, and that this d-word actually carries some meaning for me.
I’m reminded to never miss the opportunity to meet a new friend. Live each moment as if it were my last. Know where I’m going, and keep my sights on the end. Not be afraid to open-up and share what means the most to me. Fear nothing. Take on any trial. Be in the right place at the right time, and never miss the chance to make someone smile – thanks Alex!
Roy,
Well said… very well said
Don’t search too hard for meaning in the void, someone should have told you already….. you have a world of friends that are honored to know you and proud of you for more than what you have, simply what you are. Not where you live, how you live. Not the things you do, it’s how you do them.
The only thing that lives beyond our short lives is our influence on others. Take a moment right now Roy, go get a cup of coffee look out your window at the world and recognize how many lives you have touched in a positive way.
You’ve got Karma to kill!!!
Cheers,
Wheeler
PS: I’m pretty damn lucky too… to know you that is.