The Snowflake Chronicles

When Time Stops

3 Izzat 163 B.E. – September 10, 2006

There are days when time stops. When past and future events take a backseat to the terrors of the present, on the anniversaries of these days, we pause for a moment of silence or we raise a flag to commemorate the moment when the world changed forever. We are coming upon one of those days. Monday, September 11, commemorates the day when America stepped into the reality of the twenty-first century. The day we could no longer hide behind the illusion of safety.

We all remember where we were on that day, what we were doing when we heard about the Twin Towers. On that day we went through the stages of grief, perhaps are still going through the stages. Those of us who were old enough to experience the shock of time stopping will always remember where we were and what we were doing. Some of use, poet and writers, inscribed our grief in stanza and line, sentence and paragraph, while artist expressed their grief on canvas or some other medium.

Tomorrow we will pause to remember. Some of us will cry, either physical tears or we will inscribe our tears and paper and write, others will watch the news programs, as they did the day it happened. How many of us will stop and say a prayer for the departed souls of the firefights, police officers, airline passengers, or pentagon employees who were suddenly transferred into paradise that day.