Taking back 9/11

Seven years ago, life got serious.  On this day seven years ago, I watched a lot of people die in an office building that I once walked in and out of pretty regularly.  Among the wrenching thoughts swirling into a growing black hole of anger in my skull was this:  They weren't ready to die.   As the hours passed and the thought came back around for for the eleventy-billionth time, a responding thought came in like a bucket of dynamite dropped into a well fire:   "Are you?" Just as suddenly as the dynamite snuffs out a wildfire in an oil well, my mind was suddenly, absolutely, still.   "No.  I'm not." Thus began a two year spiritual journey that ended with my baptism into the Christian faith.  I took the step dilberately and publicly, knowing this would make me accountable to my friends and family, as well as my new church, and ultimately, to my God. Something else happened on 9/11, too.  This was about eighty years ago.  On that day, my mother was born.  She was raised a Catholic, married a Catholic boy from New Jersey, and I eventually joined a brother and sister, with a baby sister to be named later.   The term "great lady" was invented to describe my mother.  I became an altar boy in part to please her.  We both eventually drifted from the church, as did the rest of our family, but she retained her love of God and prayed to Him every night.  As her children grew up, those prayers became more fervent.  As she grew older, they've become more urgent. Lately her prayers have been for continued healing for my older sister, still recovering from a brain tumor operation that saved her life.  It is a prayer that is answered on a daily basis. I know she's also been praying for me, as I've been asking her and a few dozen others to do.  Last night, I was looking at a very real possibility of bankruptcy.  Given my impending divorce and what looked to be my final week of gainful employment, I was resigned to accept this too, if it was God's will. This morning, on 9/11, the realtor for my PA home called.  A prospective tenant wants to move into our house as early as next week.  I almost cried on the phone when the realization sunk in.  Later in the day I called my mother to share the news.  I think we would have both cried if I told her the news live.  Instead I just wished her a happy birthday, and said that God has delivered a wonderful present in the form of an answered prayer.   I spoke to her later on.  I could hear it in her voice, and I had to struggle to keep from crying over the sound of it.  Gone was the heartbreak, the worry, the dread.  Instead there was just  euphoria. Yes, an emotion that I so craved as recently as yesterday was present and alive on the other end of the phone, and it came into my ear and straight to my heart.  My mind tells me that I stll walk in the valley, and many precarious steps remain.  Funny thing about euphoria is that such cold logic withers at its touch.  I'll have to dial it back in a day.  Maybe two.  Tonight however, I am enjoying the biggest high since the birth of my son.  As with that day, today God has redefined this day in my heart and reclaimed it. For me, and for a woman we both love very much.  Happy birthday, Mom.  Praise you, Jesus! GDAD