From the Vault...

I've decided that occasionally I will pull something from "The Vault" that I have written and shared and perhaps some that I have written and put to the side. My goal is to not preview, just to post.

July 10, 2005:

London Calling...

A fairly innocuous morning. I slept a tad bit late (it is summer after all). Then, off to drive my daughter to her friends house for the day. A quick exchange of a hug and a kiss and wishes for a good time. I watch her as she runs across the yard to greet her friend, her dark hair flying in the summer breeze. Life is good.

I turn out of the driveway and meander my way back home admiring the suburban lawns with their lush greens and pretty flowers. I turn on the radio hoping for some nice music to enhance my rather good frame of mind. Instead I am assaulted with the news of the terrorist bombings in London. Suddenly my sense of peace and tranquility is overtaken with the surreal feeling that nothing is in the right place. Things are askew. If you have lived through the death of a loved one it is something akin to that certain out of body feeling that accompanies it. All at once I am transported back to September 11, 2001.

I had just returned from New York City. Coincidentally it was the first trip I have made since 9/11 where I did not visit the World Trade Center site. Somehow I, and life, had moved passed that time. Quite honestly I did not even give a thought to the fact that I was in the city over the fourth of July (something that even last year my mind would have pondered). Typical I suppose to be lulled back into a feeling of security and to somehow forget the horror of that time. Until the news bulletin and the sound of London calling...

In the deep hours of an early American morning as most of us were sleeping, hundreds of people were experiencing terror in its most cowardly form. I wonder how many of those that died watched their child as I had that morning and had the same thought that I had that "life is good". Or, even more sadly, how many missed that opportunity on what would be the last day of their lives?

That afternoon it began to rain in my little corner of the world. It has rained nonstop since. The dark skies remind me that nothing in life is too good to be stolen away.