9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11    It’s everywhere. I, like the rest of the country I suspect, am afraid to write the wrong thing, aware that I do not know what it’s like…And that is where I stop myself. I do know what it’s like.I do know what it feels like in the dark hollowness that filled the first months. I do know the effort it takes to place a foot, then the other on the floor.  I can talk with knowledge about leaning into a day that would be “another” one without him.

And yet, I feel uncomfortable sharing this space with those 9-11 widows. It’s feels like Art’s death is minor, less than, overshadowed by their losses in such numbers on that day.

I feel like a freshman trying to get the senior girls to think I’m cool, that in some way, I’m just like them.  Did I say it right? Is there enough respect in my tone?

Somehow, their husband’s (and wive’s) deaths feel more valuable than Art’s death.  Their losses were so public, mine a private little matter, insignificant in comparison. Their losses marked and mourned by millions, by photographs, by stories of others. My loss only remembered by a few hundred.  Their losses such a turning point in our country’s history, mine a single point in my little history. 

My loss feels less than in comparison.

This is where I stop again.

Because I know them, those widows.  

They know me.   

They are me and I am them. If I met one of them, I am sure we could have a conversation about grief and getting through, under, over, and around it.  I am sure I would see them and think 10 years.  In 10 years I can be like them!

Maybe I just need to remember a widow is a widow is a widow is a widow.

And there are no words for
the grief,
theirs,
yours,
or mine.