9/11 Memorial

Simon Maddison, age 40.
Place killed: World Trade Center. Resident of Florham Park, N.J. (USA).
He was a devoted family man. Please pray for Mr. Maddison's family today, as well as all of the victims of the attack. Do you remember where you were on 9/11? I was in an English class at UTA. Our professor had no idea the scope of the disaster, and we were reading Candide by Voltaire, which is about wide spread tragedy and the senselessness of initial responses to it. It was quite ironic. I remember going to the library and watching the news on the tv surrounded by several other fellow students. I felt numb; unsure of how to react or what to feel. The following days, I remember the silence of no airplanes. We lived in North Arlington, very close to Bell Helicopter and DFW. Airplane noise was white noise to Mike and I. And the silence was eery. I wrote a poem about the disaster, and since Mr. Maddison was in the twin towers, I will publish it here in his honor.


Twin Towers

The towers
The people
The planes
The fuel
The smoke
The fires
The rescuers
The firefighters
The jumpers
The collapse
The rubble
The collapse
The darkness
The dead
The body parts
The steel
The workers
The flag
The anthem
The hope
The collapse

During the first anniversary, I began to understand just a small bit of the tragedy as the personal stories were retold. I think of the loss of thousands, and the widows, parents, children, siblings and friends left behind to grieve. I was teaching 9th and 10th grade English at Lamar, and I had my students read the obituaries of some people who died during the attack. Which brings me back to Mr. Maddison, who left a wife and a family behind. Please pray for them. I know I already asked that, but I am sure that today is lonely and empty in a way that many of us will never understand, but in a way that God understands. I am truly, deeply sorry for their loss.