I was driving to the dog park when I heard about the first plane.

I didn’t think it was intentional at first. I thought that the plane was a piper-cub type and the person aboard was just way off course.

I thought, How can you miss seeing the World Trade Center? It’s huge. How could he run into it?”

I am naive.

I spent the day with everyone else, numb, glued to the TV in my office.

What do you remember?

Remember the people with the pictures of the loved ones that they were looking for?

There was one woman who knew where her husband was in the wreckage. He had called her right before the building went down.  She pointed to a map of the now demolished building and said, He’s right here. I know he’s right here. Can someone please go in and get him out?

He was by the front door. He barely didn’t make it.

Tragedy

That day was tragic and confusing.

And for someone, Sept. 11, 2009 will be the day when their world rips apart. And for someone, that day was yesterday.

People mark the anniversaries of plane crashes, train crashes, car crashes, tornados, fires, tsunamis.

People mark the anniversaries of Hugo, Andrew and Katrina.

People mark the anniversaries of quiet defeats in hospital beds.

Death happens big and death happens little.

But it happens. And our day is coming.

Perhaps, the best way to honor the dead is to celebrate life.

Perhaps, the best way to do justice to the details of that day is to do justice to the details of today.

Go drink a glass of orange juice, sit in the sun, play with your kids or your dogs or your spouse or your neighbor. Make a pie.  Knit a sweater.  Buy a cup of coffee for a stranger.

Enjoy what it is about this life that you have. Enjoy the living daylights out of it.