Honoring those we lost

Despite spending eight years in Catholic schools and serving as godfather to two young cousins, I rarely find myself in a church. Typically, I go when everyone else does — when the church is full for a mass at Christmas, Easter, or the occasional funeral or wedding.

But I do go one extra day a year, and that’s on Sept. 11. I go not for a service or a mass, but instead to spend some time alone with my thoughts. I’m not sure if I honestly can say I even go to pray. I go because it’s quiet, familiar, and comforting — all things I need on this day.

While I suffered far less than so many of my own neighbors, it’s a day that runs the emotional gauntlet, and makes me think about and question things that do not usually cross my mind.

My father narrowly survived that day, escaping the towers thanks to his own instinct, the sacrifice of others, and plenty of blessings and luck. Hearing and telling his story still brings chills. He was in his office, sixty stories high, when the first tower was struck. His building was the second one to be hit, swaying from the force of the impact. He saw first responders run up the stairs past him as he evacuated after his tower was hit. It’s enough to make you dizzy.

I cannot imagine living without my father, even when I sit in the church each year and try to picture it. But plenty must not only imagine living without their fathers, sons, brothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends but must actually go on without them. Sitting in the church each year, it’s been enough to make me wonder if there is any good in the world, or any point in trying to do good.

But that’s the lesson this day teachers us. Our response to the bad, the horrific, the frightening and the tragic should not be fear, hate or even desperation, as valid as those emotions and reactions may be. Instead, our response must be compassion, sincerity, and empathy.

And it has been. Look at the news after 9/11, or after more recent tragedies like Hurricane Sandy, and you’ll see story after story of people going above and beyond to help family, friends, neighbors, and even complete strangers. But the challenge now is to keep it going, even more than a decade later. To help others without being asked, to be compassionate, even when, and especially when, it’s easier to be angry. To be compassionate and empathetic, even when there is not a tragedy staring us in the face. It’s the best way to honor those that we have lost.