nineeleven
I laid in bed last night, struggling to fall asleep. It was 10:45 and I was still amped up from winning the championship in a basketball rec league earlier in the night and seeing the Sox come back from an 8-1 deficit to take a lead of 16-9 after 7 innings. And I realized...it was 9-11, the 6th anniversary...and I hadn't cried. I think my voice only cracked once when my Dad called to tell me he was thinking of me.
As I have written here before, I like a good cry, and don't think there is anything wrong with letting the tears flow to get your emotions out. Kristin recently shared some fact she read with me that it is good for the body to cry and let stuff out and I was like "well yeah!" Anyway, it just didn't happen yesterday. Did I think of our friend that we lost that day and the thousands of other people? Yes. Did I stress out about raising enough money to build the memorial gate for him at our high school? Damn right. But I think I have just cried enough salty water on this one for a while. I have always tried to avoid news coverage on the anniversaries and I did that yesterday, which also contributed to the lack of tears. Then I get into work this morning and watch my father in law's You Tube recollection of his experience that day, which I had TOTALLY forgotten about, and I almost lost it. But quickly got into an email convo with him about baseball and that changed my outlook.
Anyway, maybe the weather had something to do with it. In the first 5 anniversaries, at least in the Northeast, the weather has been perfect, as it was on the actual day. Yesterday it rained all freakin day, like 2 inches in some places. Maybe that had more of a role then one would think, or was controlled by peeps up there.
One last thing. A teammate on that basketball team that won it all last night is the younger brother of the friend that we lost on 9-11. Having a friendship with him has been a tremendous therapy for me over the last 6 years. It is scary how much they are alike. And when I first started playing hoop with him a year or so after his brother died, I would find myself yelling "Kevin" if I wanted a pass from him (and I always want passes, I like to shoot!), and that freaked me out in a big way. But it's all good now.
He said something interesting to me last night before the game, "you know what's weird, is that even though Kevin was 27 when he died and I am 29 now, he'll always be my older brother. even though I have now lived 2 more years then him already, he'll always be 4 years older then me. I look at his picture and it's like he is 33"
Forever 27 but growing old in his little brother's eyes.
We all miss you man, and fuck...typing this post, yeah...it kind of kicked the whole no more tears theory right out the door. Oh well.
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