Memories
It was today, 2 years ago, that Hurricane Rita roared onto the shores of the United States between Texas and Louisianna. I had spent the last 30 hours driving with my task force from New York, and had ended up in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Due to a combination of forecasting miscues as well as a slight deviation from our road trip plan, we were held overnight while the storm landed so as not to actually be caught in its path. We were housed through the graciousness of the Vicksburg Fire Department and the generosity of the Ameristar Casino located there on the actual Mississippi river. It is because of them, I am able to check of Frog Legs from my list of Things To Eat One Day. That was also the last night I would sleep under a solid roof until October 15, when on the return trip we stopped in Tennessee at a Holiday Inn Express (hey, only the best, ya know?) in the town of Bristol. I did alot those 25 days. I saw alot of things, met alot of people. It was a simpler time although there were so many complications. In the end though, I was glad to get home… I had things… people… here for me.
If there was a deployment today, or tomorrow, or whenever… I would definitely go again. The difference though… is I really don’t have anything here for me to rush home to anymore. There really would be nothing stopping me from staying in Vicksburg for… well… the rest of my life. Now I know I have friends and family here, but there is no one I am actually obligated or committed to. There’s really no reason to be here for me anymore. It’s both scary and saddening when I think about it.
What would bring you home?
It has been 3 months.
It feels like it was yesterday, and at the same time it feels like it was years ago. Mornings are still the roughest time of day… and Sundays are still the actual roughest day. Some people still look at me a little funny… but for the most part… it’s become business as usual. Only, it really isn’t business as usual… and it never will be again.
Ten days ago I was on the phone with Pudding, and as usual she recounted what happened that day six years ago still in awe of it all. She reminded me that I had been listed as “missing” for about 9 hours that day… and that the person who came home at three in the morning that night covered in white chalky dust was not the same person she dropped off in a blue uniform. Of course, I’d heard this all before and have been acutely aware of it. Then she asked me, “How do you keep standing with everything that has happened?”
When she asked me, I really didn’t have an answer. How do I keep standing through all of this? How will I keep standing through today? How will I keep standing through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years? How will I keep standing in February when DJ‘s birthday rolls around and he SHOULD be eight? How will I keep standing when the circus comes to town again?
Love. That’s really the only explanation to any of it that I could come up with. How else are we, as humans, able to cope with such pain other than through love. My family gives me the strength through their love… and by being there in the darkness of the morning. My friends give me the strength through their love… and by being there on those dark nights. All the times in between… when no one else is there… it is all of you who give me the strength through your love. From you its 24/7/365, and that is something I am so grateful for because my moments of extreme weakness don’t always happen at the most convenient of times.
I’m really not looking forward to anything other than a potential hurricane. I usually like the holidays… but I’m really not feeling them at all this year. I don’t think I can really do them… so I think I’ll probably skip them. I’ll work or something.
First though, I need to get through today.
Oh, and Dana rawks. Serious 
‘s for the awesome video.
It has been 3,155,040 minutes since 9:59am on September 11,2001. It has been 3,155,040 minutes since the South Tower of the World Trade Center at Liberty Street and West Street collapsed. I ask that you specifically remember the following nine Emergency Medical Service Responders who perished in that collapse:
Carlos Lillo
Ricardo Quinn
Keith Fairben
Mark Schwartz
David Sullins
volunteer Zhe Zang
my friend Mario Santoro
my friend and vollie dispatcher Richard Pearlman
and my friend and partner Yamel Merino
The one consolation I have in all that has happened this year is knowing that DJ is in good company with you Yum… miss you… love you…
The weekends are always hard. Holiday weekends seem to be the hardest though.
This past weekend, Pudding brought The Wolves and her significant other in to visit with my parents and I on Saturday. We all went to a Shiro of Japan Hibachi restaurant. It was the first time the kids had ever been to a place like that, and they definitely enjoyed themselves.
As an opening, the chef started by lighting the grill on fire and some knife and fork play. Typical fare. Then he started tossing eggs… and the first egg he tossed got caught in the hood over the grill where it laid up on the lip. Blinky found this absolutely hysterical, and every ten minutes would start giggling and laughing about the egg. The chef was a good sport, and when she started laughing he would smile and say in his really broken English, “Haha I make one mistake and little girl mock me. Haha.”
After dinner, we went next door to where the were having a fair in a parking lot of the mall complex where the restaurant was. The fair is identical to the fair that we had all gone to on Mother’s Day… where the picture on top was snapped… along with the pictures from this post and this post. The rides were the same… the music was the same… the laughter was the same… but IT wasn’t the same. He wasn’t there. It was hard walking through those grounds… but I did it hand in hand with Blinky… if for no other reason than for Blinky.
Sunday… well Sunday I watched the Heroes Season 1 DVD collection, I worked on some videos, and I took about 5 brief naps. Sleeping has become both my best friend and my worst enemy. I’ve been napping alot… more than I should be even with the screwy hours I’ve been working. The thing is… my sleep at night is plagued and interrupted. When I get up in the morning, I’m more tired than I was when I went to bed. The fact that a week from today marks 6 years since that clear September morning… which also was a Tuesday as it is this year… I’m sure isn’t helping.
Yesterday I went to Puddings for a BBQ. I constantly found myself gazing into horizons lost in thoughts of “what if”, memories of BBQs past, and the feeling of a vacuum in my chest while the sounds of kids laughing in the background sounded incomplete… kind of like me.
Labor Day weekend.
It was hard work getting through it… and it made me dread what’s coming up in 4 months.
When I was younger I had a Lego fetish. The colored plastic blocks were pretty much the constant toy from my kindergarten years up through high school. In fact, I still have them. All two footlockers worth of them are stored safely, minus an essential handful that I had given to DJ awhile ago. I had hoped that eventually he would take one of the footlockers and that they would be as inspirational and educational to him as they were to me. In fact, one of the most important things building Legos did for me was to teach me how to follow directions and drawing schematics.
So last night I put that education to good use. The Steff bought a computer desk a few weeks ago that she needed put together and she asked me to do it since the Donkey has two left hooves when it comes to this kind of stuff. So after a hellish day at work (a 9 hour day turned into 12) yesterday, I headed over to her house for the great assembly.
So I got there and dragged the box downstairs with the Donkey. I opened the box and began combing through the pieces and looking at the instructions. Once I had everything set I set about getting it together. After literally 5 minutes, I was sweating profusely. She does have an air conditioner, but it wasn’t helping me keep my salty fluid in my skin. It was an 8 step process… and by step 2 I was so drenched my shirt had changed color. The directions weren’t the clearest, but I was able to get the basic gist even though there were a few times I needed to undo what I had done to flip stuff around. In all fairness, Donkey did help out a bit, but I was still the one sweating like a pig. Finally, after 45 minutes, the desk was together.
So after the desk was up and done… it was suggested the bed should be done while I was there. See, she had taken her uncle’s furniture when he moved to Las Vegas earlier in the year, and it included a wrought iron bed to replace the bed that needed fixin‘ last year. Now since the bed was fixed more permanently by her father (using some glue or something) it hasn’t given her any problems… but a new bed is still a new bed and it came with matching dressers. The thing is this furniture has been stored away for almost 6 months because no one seemed to want to put it together. So… Donkey and I knocked it out… and yes I continued to sweat profusely. The bed took about 30 minutes and I stepped back and admired the sturdy wrought iron frame that had replaced the rackety wooden bed.
There are no schematics to life. There are no manuals, directions, or advice that will just make my life better by itself. While they can guide you, what will change your life is the same thing that brought that sturdy wrought iron behemoth together… understanding… determination… help from your friends… and your own sweat. I have a lot of sweating to do.
I think I’ll invest in a Richard Simmons headband.
categories: Personal The Steff Memories Remembering DJ
