On this 9/11, unlike that 9/11, my attention was divided. On that 9/11 I could not escape a blinding telescopic focus on the senseless loss of lives and the pain experienced by loving survivors. On that 9/11 I could not look away from the roiling abyss of hatred that had lashed out with such a deafening roar. On that 9/11 I felt like love was like the air that gasping lungs could not regain.

On this 9/11, my attention was divided. My mind kept going back to that 9/11 as I listened to snatches of conversations sharing our “where I was” stories like beads on a rosary. I spent time with friends I love. I smiled while watching my son play soccer with his friends in a steamy tropical rain. I celebrated an incredible, brilliant, loving boy’s 10th birthday.

And I reminded myself that if that 9/11 couldn’t destroy the love in me, then this 9/11 I need to redouble my commitment to manifesting what is great about the ideals of America. To not allowing intolerance and hatred to seem bigger than love, equality and our shared humanity.

This piece, ‘A Letter to My Son on the Tenth Anniversary of September 11’  really speaks to me. Thank you Terry Keleher for writing it.

So I am glad that on this 9/11 my attention is divided between the past, the present, and the future. Because history is not destiny and though that past shapes, it does not have to define our future.