Moving along

There are days that I revisit my posts of years gone by ... "What was I doing on this date in 2008?" But this time of year, looking back is fraught with danger.

First of all, 9/11. Always a highly emotional remembrance for me. Not only for all the lives lost and what it signified for this country, but for me personally. The agency I worked for shared a floor with the Israeli consulate. After the planes hit the World Trade Center in New York and then there was the attack in Washington at the Pentagon, no one knew what else was afoot. The authorities could not get us out of that building fast enough. Being evacuated was chilling. The Chicago Police I encountered were brave and professional but also, clearly, frightened themselves. None of us knew what was happening, what to expect. I tried to decide how to get home that didn't take me too close to Sears Tower, in case it was the Chicago target. Awful and ghoulish, but that's how my mind worked. I've never experienced that kind of feral fear before or since. I hope I'll never experience it again.

Then my surgery. In 2011, I had a hysterectomy in 9/9. The lead up was stressful: How extensive would the surgery be? Would I discover I had cancer? My story had a happy ending. I'm very grateful. And, while it might not be appropriate to say, I rather enjoyed my recovery time. Six weeks with pay! When will that every happen again?

Then last year, on this date, my mother died. I miss her. I'm angry at her. I have so much I wish I could say to her, so much to ask her about. A day doesn't go by that I don't think of her, and her death, several times. But I have gotten through it. I have survived the first birthday, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first Easter and now, the first anniversary of her death.

I feel very adult, very womanly today. Not happy. Not peaceful. But strangely satisfied that I have gotten through the worst of it, and sure that tomorrow will be better.