Category: Nightmares

In September’s Stillness

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It was a bright September Tuesday morning. Clear skies, mild temperatures, and low humidity. A perfect day in the Chicago suburbs.

At around 7:30 on September 11, 2001, I pulled up to the curb at Lincoln Junior High to drop off Kirk, my twelve-year-old son. He scampered ahead and waved goodbye.

Forty-four-year-old me drove to the nearby RecPlex for a quick swim at the indoor pool. On the way to the locker room to change, I saw a small cluster of folks gathered silently around a TV.

A plane had just struck the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Dire images of smoke and debris filled the sky.

Minutes later, a second plane pierced the south tower. It was just the beginning of the madness.

Terror spread quickly through the skies to crash scenes at two other sites: the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Captivated and numb in disbelief near the vending machines in the lobby hundreds of miles away, we stood dumbfounded and helpless–gaping in September’s stillness–as ripples of the horrific news and images unfolded.

Ultimately, 2,977 victims died that day, casualties of the September 11 attacks at the hands of eighteen foreign hijackers and many more strategists who infiltrated American skies.

Thousands more were injured and sustained life-long trauma, including citizens and rescue workers exposed to toxins at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan in New York.

***

It’s been twenty-four years. We are still trying to make sense of how much we lost, how much our lives changed, that day.

I don’t mean the inconveniences of air travel. Yes, that’s a pain.

Much worse, gun violence, school shootings, assassinations, and homegrown terrorism are the norm in the United States. Through it all, we have become as divided as ever.

Just yesterday, the latest two unrelated horrors–one a school shooting near Denver, the other the assassination of a vocal, right-wing protagonist–dominated the news cycle.

The solution is obvious. We need to remember our traumas and learn from them. Institute tighter gun laws in this country, not more thoughts and prayers.

I do believe our leaders have failed us. We have voted the wrong ones into positions of authority. Instead of quieting the storm and pulling us together, they are threatening those who don’t agree with them.

If we don’t make changes soon, our legacy will be continued bloodshed, not the freedom, opportunities, and equality we have espoused as a nation for generations.

***

My twelve-year-old son is now thirty-six and living in Chicago. He is a therapist. Kirk specializes in helping individuals who have experienced some sort of trauma.

I couldn’t be prouder of Kirk and the work he is doing. At a young age, I witnessed his kindness, his empathy toward classmates, neighbors, and family members.

Now he is honing his skills, while providing relief to those who need it most in American society.

I try to do the same through my writing. Telling the stories as I see them but leaving you with a glimmer of insight, relief and hope.

If there was one positive thing that sprang from the 9/11 attacks, it was the way our nation coalesced–at least in the short term–around the victims, their families, their stories in 2001.

As a nation, we were forced to take a breath as we dug through the rubble. We forged ahead to provide a salve to treat the psychological trauma we all felt.

Somehow, in 2025, we have lost our wits. We have forgotten how to love the less fortunate, protect our children, and teach them to be critical thinkers rather than conspiracy theorists.

We had better wake up fast, pass gun laws, rediscover our compassion, and find our better selves soon.

Loss in St. Louis

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Photo by Matthias Cooper on Pexels.com

If you follow the weather news in the United States, you know that on Friday, May 16, parts of St. Louis, Missouri–where I was born in 1957 and reborn in 2017–suffered an estimated $1 billion in damages from an EF3 tornado.

The powerful storm tore through central and north St. Louis, killing five people while damaging or destroying 5,000 buildings and countless trees … including many majestic ones in and around one of the city’s gems: Forest Park.

I have no doubt that over the coming days, weeks, months, and years, the citizens of St. Louis will heal and recover. But it will be a tall mountain to climb for many financially and emotionally.

I have made a donation to the American Red Cross disaster relief efforts. But I want to do more for the city I love, which appears in all five of my books. It is hardwired into my prose and poems in large and small ways …

In memories of my hard-working family, our suburban midwestern existence, humid summer days, learning to operator a rollercoaster at Six Flags, working at the top of the Gateway Arch (pictured here) in the late 1970s, rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals, boating on the Mississippi River, visiting the St. Louis Zoo, frequenting the aforementioned Forest Park, and much more.

In addition to making a donation of your own to your favorite relief charity, here’s another way you can help. Buy any of my five books during May and June.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B01DCYIAD4

I will donate $10 for each book I sell (paperback, Kindle, or audiobook) during that period to Forest Park Forever. It is a private nonprofit conservancy.

As described on their website, the organization “partners with the City of St. Louis to restore, maintain and sustain Forest Park as one of America’s great urban public parks for a diverse community of visitors to enjoy, now and forever.”

Thank you in advance for your support of my literary efforts and the city of St. Louis … as well as its beautiful urban greenspace in the middle of town, which I still love and remember.

***

Incidentally, Tom and I will travel to St. Louis in September to attend a Class of 1975 reunion with my Affton High School classmates. Yikes, fifty years! More to come on that.

Destination Unknown

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I was about to embark on a journey. But not remotely ready. Nonetheless, I was expected to begin Day One of a new job, in uniform as a United Airlines flight attendant.

A crowd of other newbies gathered around me. We lined up to have our security photos taken by a young, rather handsome cameraman with a large head. He teetered on a tiny chair with his knees protruding beyond his elbows.

When it came to be my turn, the blond figure told me to stand on an X marked on the floor. Then, he stood to reveal his true height.

His elongated body stretched for nearly eight feet before he snapped my photograph and disappeared behind a funhouse mirror.

A primitive machine spit out my image, but I don’t remember receiving my security credentials.

About this time, my husband appeared on the other side of a window that contained a metal tray below. He told me he wanted to slide cash to me under the glass. He thought I might need it on my journey. He said he would meet me on the other side. I felt disoriented and dismayed.

Moments later, I found myself standing in front of a harried female administrative assistant. She sat behind an old desk with stacks of papers and files surrounding her. She worked for United. She told me I needed to board my first flight in about thirty minutes, but that my hair was unkempt.

As she handed me a boarding pass, she spieled off a list of complicated directions that would lead me to a trusted stylist in the terminal. She insisted there was time to accomplish this necessary task, though I would need to run to catch my flight.

I felt anxious. Unprepared for my journey. Unsure of the safety protocols. Disturbed that the length of my hair was causing me trouble. Lost in a once-familiar Chicago terminal that was now foreign to me.

That’s when I woke up.

Photo by Keith Lobo on Pexels.com