9-12-31

I came home last night around 11pm to eat dinner. I turned on the television to eat to the noise - and there I found burning on my screen the twin towers of the world trade center. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn't in a dream. I sat there dumbfounded - rice completely forgotten. I sat there for the next five minutes when I realized they were also seeing shots from the pentagon in DC. Unreal. I jumped on the phone to call my friends and family back home. The first twenty minutes I was able to get through - but after the first half hour since the announcement - getting through was impossible - all the lines in Japan were full.

All my family and relatives are safe - far away from New York - but still - there are the families who were not so lucky. When I think of the people who were there - yesterday, of the families who did call that evening/morning to find out that they may never see an individual again - I can't help but shed a tear.

I can still see the images of people walking through the streets of Manhattan, the streets I feel are my home, that I grew so close to, covered with dust, faces caked with tears, terror stuck in their throats - I see the image of tower two collapse - never to make up the New York city skyline again - I see men and women in suites running frantically in DC and I can't sleep - I almost can't think what to do next.

In class this morning my students asked me about it - I almost broke down and cried - but one must maintain composure in a classroom. I am now sitting in the teachers room trying not to show my tears welling consistently. What drives people to kill and at such a massive rate? What is the point of a human sacrifice like that? Mass killings makes death too metaphoric, it makes winning too detached from the individual - nation vs. nation - I don't dig that. Industry, power, money - where is the person, where is the heart of the matter that is beging avenged, if not protected and rebuilt? I am dreadfully afraid that this may begin a war - hopefully, as Israel did during the gulf war - we can somehow hold back killing more - I don't see how more blood will appease the hearts and souls of those lost yesterday, or of those who lost people yesterday. I do know that there is a dull thudding in my heart - a thudding that indicates an emptiness - a loss to something that was there yesterday and not today - but more dead will not fill that gap - I hope my country, my beloved homeland does the moral, the human, the right thing - whatever it is - to avoid further bloodshed - but also find solace for my fellow countrymen.

It is suprising that such an event makes people express patriotism more that without. This is not to say it is patriotism absent in the lack of such tragedy, but that it becomes necessary to express such things to maintain oneself through such difficulty. I wish I were in the States right now to do something - I wish I could do more for those who are now hurting - but I have to quietly bit my tounge and pray, pray as hard as I can for those who saw yesterday as their last burst of sunlight, for those who saw the face of a loved one for the last time. Pray and know that spirit world exists, and hope that those who left us yesterday can let go of any potential resentment so their post-mortem lives can be peaceful - not painful.

I hope the world learns to heal itself better than what it's demonstrating. I send my love and hope out to the world. Pray that we will be able to build a better tomorrow for the kids.

This is hanako signing out..