Still Healing

September 24, 2001

Greetings from the autumnal equinox,

The creaking sounds that accompany these words is the noise of our planet easing over on its axis, tilting toward a different season for those of us committed to this corner of our hemisphere.  Down beneath the equator summer is rushing in as if on the tide, while here in the north we are left with only the puddles of warmth and green, waiting for the cold wind to sweep the vestiges away.

My eyes glaze over as I look down at my list of things to do, scroll through my personal organizer, glance at the calendar for appointments.   I realized too late that I was spending too much time absorbing the details of September 11, and that the sadness is etched too deep in my psyche.  I find myself filtering most everything I think or do through this sadness, and it leaves a dark stain.

This is not the first bad thing to ever have happened.  This is not the worst atrocity I have been aware of.  I have no friends or family missing in the tangled morass where 110 stories stood.  But for some reason it has poisoned my outlook, and I have been looking for an antidote.

I seek refuge in the usual places.  I pray, but I feel no peace, no resolution.   I write, but the words seem silly and inconsequential.  I go for a long run, and find myself arguing the same pointless arguments in my head.   I am waiting for some ‘click’ in my head that will make some sense, show some balance, a hint at hope. 

In front of me in church, there is a little girl.  Her name is Mattie.  Her mother feeds her raisins to keep her occupied, and she rolls them around in her mouth, practicing with the few front teeth she has.  The look on her face is delight.  She peeks at me over the back of the pew, her eyes are wrinkled by the smile hidden against her mother’s shoulder.  I flirt for a while, and am taken away by her beauty and innocence.

I begin to see a light.

I have two friends who would tell me that any time I get too introspective, it probably means I have too much time on my hands.  What I need is a shovel in my hands

It’s Sunday afternoon and I am hacking at the dirt next to my house, hewing through clay, spraying top soil, shredding roots.  I am digging a hole next to the foundation of our house, looking for a likely place where water infiltrated our basement last winter.  I am attacking the job, intent on defeating the dirt.  Soon I am shoulder deep, and I am thinking of the hundreds of rescue workers in New York, digging through rubble.  I sit down, rest my back against the house.  This isn’t working.

I fiddle idly with the soil at the foundation, and right there is the source of my problem, a small crack in the cement.  Just like that.  I’m not looking for it, and it appears.

Some dirt slides into the hole from above and I look up to see Sawyer, standing at the rim of the pit I am crouched in.  He asks me what I’m doing, and I explain I’ve just found the hole in the house where the water leaks in.  He considers this for a moment.

“I’ll go get the duct tape” he says and is gone before I can start laughing.

Sitting at the bottom of the hole, laughing and trying not to inhale dirt, I am beginning to get the message.  Have faith, and God will provide the solution.  It may come in church, but maybe not from the pastor.  It may come at the bottom of a pit delivered by a seven year old boy.   It doesn’t necessarily come to you in a blinding light or some revelation of thought.  Sometimes you absorb it as life happens around you.

The pain I have this morning is sore shoulders, an aching knee.  It will be dulled by time and movement.  It will be eased by doing what I do every day, until it is gone. 

Hope this finds you with a shovel in your hands.

David