The Way We Were

[NanceGreggs]

Six years ago today, the day started with an event so horrific, it seemed that nothing would ever be the same again. We were shocked, stunned into silence, reduced to tears, afraid and paralyzed.

Within minutes, we were on the move. There were no boundaries, no limits, no restrictions on what could be done – only a sense of what needed to be done, and the determination to do it.

People ran into collapsing buildings. People jumped into cars and drove hundreds of miles not knowing what they would do when they got to their destination; only knowing that whatever they could do would be done without hesitation.

No one asked about the color, religion, ethnicity, or financial means of those who required assistance; they only asked who needed help, and how they could be of service to those in need.

There were no Republicans, no Democrats, no supporters of any one political ideology. There were only Americans, and the unwavering, unconditional support of each other was the only ideology that mattered to anyone.

By nightfall, we were one. We were one America, one citizenry, one nation. We wept for our dead, arms wrapped around each other in an embrace that held only warmth, only comfort, only consolation.

In the dawn’s early light of the next morning, we were defiant, we were angry, we were Americans. The country was awash in the red, white and blue of flags; they hung from well-worn porch posts, they flew unabashedly on the hoods of Mercedes and pick-up trucks, they stood proudly on the landscaped lawns of country clubs and the front yards in neighborhoods that had seen better days.

This is who we were, before the unprecedented unity was turned into unprecedented division, before the friendship of our global neighbors was turned into enmity, before the righteous cry for justice against those who perpetrated the murderous deed was turned into a war cry against those who had no hand in the deed at all.

This is who we were, before those who saw the influence of fear, the profit to be made in war, the dollars to be reaped from death, the power to be wrung from the suffering of others turned their positions of trust into bastions of betrayal.

But we are still the the way we were; that was not an aberration, a once-in-a-lifetime moment of magic not meant to endure. We are still those Americans who stood together at the worst moment of our lives.

We are but buried under years of rhetoric, lies, corruption, manipulation, greed. Our resurrection from the grave has been a slow process, but we will be those people again.