Five Years Later #3
A couple weeks prior to 9/11 our daughter had left to spend her sophomore college year in Spain. It was easy, though we didn't know it at the time. We walked with her through the airport and right up to the gate where we waited with her until not long before it was time to start the boarding process (and she was ready to get rid of us and be on her own.) No extra security. No "Only Passengers Allowed Beyond This Point." It was difficult to say goodbye, of course. She's an only child and Mom and Dad were facing another empty nest with her being thousands of miles away.

Then came 9/11. All planes were grounded. My wife put her feelings this way:

Up to that point I knew that if there was a problem, even all the way over there in Spain, we could book a flight, get on a plane and be in Seville within a day. All that changed. I couldn't go to help my daughter if she needed me. I felt weak and powerless. It was awful.

But thank God for cell phones. Up to that point here in the US, they were mostly seen as a necessary evil- at best. An inconvenience. But for the next few days they became the lines of communication. We could reach her at any time of day or night- and she could do the same.

She called within an hour of the planes hitting the towers to find out what was happening. We talked a number of times that day and each day that followed as we all tried to figure out what was happening. Across the miles and miles I came to truly appreciate and depend on the cell phone for its ability to keep us in touch.



When she came home at Christmas she was the one who noticed big differences. There were American flags everywhere. Outward showings of patriotic fervor were hard to miss. After spending months in Europe such "flag-waving" seemed strange, out of place. Not out of a lack of patriotism on her part- but because it deepened that gap between us and them.

Not a lot has changed in these five years as far as that goes. The waving of the Red, White, and Blue is still a political action that tries to separate the good guys from the bad, or at least less good guys. I first remember this happening 40 years ago with the Vietnam War era. The flag was used to separate, not unite. The flag became a symbol of a conservative political agenda. Those who stitched it to jackets or whatever were seen as flag desecraters. Today the flag is used in those same ways by those who would have stoned the flag-wearers of the 60s.

I for one do not like that at all. I am a liberal. I am a democrat. I am a full-blooded American. I love the flag. I am moved by the flag and the Star-Spangled Banner and Stars and Stripes Forever. I do not apologize for that. I refuse to allow the right-wing conservatives to own the American flag. It is a symbol of our union not our division. It is the individual stripes and stars- the diversity that can help us be an even greater example to the world.



(Both pictures taken at Ground Zero, June, 2006.)