Our Alamo

Growing up in Texas, I was taught the battle cry “Remember the Alamo” early.  Texans take their state’s history very personally.  In learning the story of the historical slaughter, I accepted my own tiny corner of the state’s painful memory.  The package also contained a piece of the indignant rage, shameful pride, and even a desire to make good on the promises of the past to ensure that those lives were not lost in vain. 

Today, my Facebook news feed is flooded with a more modern battle cry of sorts, “I remember.” 

I wish I didn’t.

Of course I remember.  How could any of us forget the day we heard the news?  How could anyone forget the waves of confusion and disbelief?  How will any of us ever forget the panic that sent us to the pumps, preparing to flee if necessary? 

I’d rather not carry the memory of the missing faces papering the tall city we all knew.  I’d love to forget the days of mourning, silent moments broken only by tolling bells.  Families broken forever.  Bodies.  Wreckage.  Tears.

Televisions on round the clock coverage.  Flood lamps illuminating Ground Zero like day.  Workers covered in soot and ash.  Empty fire houses.  Another building falls and the work begins all over again.

I remember sitting in a wooden pew on a Sunday in September, searching for peace and comfort in the words of a pastor.  I knew we all were searching together.  We wept together, sharing fear and sadness.

A year later, before the memory grew stale and quiet, I found myself standing beside a truck with my husband and his brothers in uniform.  Above us, red, white and blue waved in the ocean air, atop an extended ladder.  The dancers gave me a rose, a hug and a kiss on the cheek, despite my protests. 

The next year, I sat with those men in a dark room.  For days, they watched marathons of documentaries.  They had read the reports.  They knew the story like the back of their hands, and they relived it with faith and dedication.

With each year that passes, the memory retreats a little.  But all we have to do is call its name and it appears again, filling our mind and heart with months we would rather never to have lived.

Last year, I taught this story to children who did not remember.  In doing so, I passed them their own little piece of our pain.  Those children, the ones that do not remember, will inherit this shared memory just as we inherited the memory of the Alamo, Pearl Harbor, or The War Between the States.  They will carry this story in their hearts without ever completely knowing it. 

Sadly, though, their day will come.  One day, they will live through their own September 11th.  Their own Alamo.  Only on that day will they begin to understand. 

Then they will learn what it means to remember, no matter how much you wish you could forget.

Je me souviens.

Eight years ago today a lot of "Fire Daddies" died. Not mine, but hundreds of other little girls' and boys'.

Roughly six years ago, I attended my first firefighter's funeral. I'll never forget that day.

Jack had been a helicopter medic in Vietnam. FireDaddy used to tell me about nights when he got even less sleep than usual for a night at the station because of Jack's nightmares. They plagued not only him, but all of his bunkmates, too. But, Jack was a good guy. Everyone loved him. The little Fire Babies loved him like a grandpa or crazy uncle. And, he sure did like them back.

He was a handsome, gray-haired man. Pictures of him from long ago, from the days when his children were young, were displayed on storyboards at the back of the sanctuary.

The wives arrived separately from their husbands, many of whom were attending while on duty. Our men looked handsome in their uniforms and white gloves. But they were in pain, and their faces showed it.

I, with my nursing baby, watched from a small "cry room" in the church. Thankful for the 13-inch black and white monitor perched in the corner of the room, I nursed and rocked through my tears. I recognized my husband's figure standing beside the coffin with his buddies.

I was not prepared for what happened when they removed from that quiet casket, first, the fire helmet, and then the flag...

I knew the sound. On most days, it meant "get up and go". The sound that interrupted lunches with wives and kids, Thanksgiving with the families, workouts, sound sleeps, favorite TV shows, white knuckle football games, trips to the grocery store, and hot dinners on the stove. The sound that, on any other day, made their heart race with anticipation.

The tone went out. Then, the faceless woman at dispatch, perhaps the same woman who fetched my husband from a fire the night I went into labor, announced the last call for Engineer Jack. And just like that, she toned out again. And it was over.

Afterwards, FireDaddy silently disappeared around the corner of the church, one in a sad, sorrowful line of firemen. Their heads and bodies slumped. The sadness weighing their shoulders down. I hardly recognized them.

These were the men who flirted with me, laughed with my husband, cooed at my baby, played pranks on each other, drank together, ran together, lifted together, cooked together, ate together. They had nicknames for everyone. They shared a bond made sacred over spilled blood and branded with fire. They shared secrets they couldn't share with anyone else. They had a trust they had with no one else. And now, they were without one.

When they finally emerged from their momentary retreat, they said little. Until we all, a whole family, broke bread. We hugged. We laughed. We passed babies and smiles around the table.

That was six years ago. Our family hasn't been the same since. I cannot even imagine what the families who lost many, not just one, suffered. I cannot imagine how empty their hearts must have felt.

FireDaddy has a tattoo on his heart. It is a black maltese cross split in two by a red line. Surrounding it, "Ut vivant alii "....

So others may live.