Moment of Silence

The silence was unbearable- thousands of people standing in statuesque likeness, just silent. Some people cried, some swayed, praying for all that was lost. But you just stood there, bewildered- wide eyed with innocence and wonder at the mess sprawled out before you. The ash spread over the city like a blanket, covering all the faces, blending the darkness with the light, making us all one race, for one moment, the same. And you didn’t understand.

No one understood. How could one act, however tragic, unite an entire nation? That is what your eyes asked of me. And mine returned your inquisitiveness, with no answer. If I, an adult, fully capable of understanding life, death and all that goes along with it, was at a loss, couldn’t find the words, couldn’t get a grip, how could you? My child, my little girl- in this moment, you lost your innocence, like so many other little boys and girls elsewhere. You all lost you childhood. You all gained pain.

When the moment was over, and you realized all that it encompassed, your life changed, it matched mine. I held your hand and walked you away from the gray, away from where the sorrow lay. But we couldn’t walk far enough; for the sadness resided in our hearts, as it does to this very day. It resides in out minds and dreams, in our hopes and fears, it lives in our churches and prayers. It’s memorialized, remembered, honored and defended each and everyday. Lest we forget, is what they say. And how could we? That moment of silence, of sorrow and gloom, that’s united and divided a country in ways too numerous to count, how could we forget? It’s written in our history books, etched permanently into the scared face of our earth, inscribed forever in our hearts. The moment of silence that will echo on forever.