September 11th and the Moral Wound of a Generation

/ A. Ward, LPC / Leave a comment

Where were you on that September morning? I remember it in sharp relief.

We were working at a boarding school in Indiana when my still-new husband called me at home to tell me that America was under attack. I still remember the feel of the floor beneath my shifting feet as I listened uncomprehending and told him that he must be mistaken. I tuned into the one station we had on our TV, adjusting the rabbit ears as the second plane hit, and proceeded to watch in horror for the next six hours. Fear became a palpable thing, seeping into my pores. Somewhere between home and work, I cried for my mother in the hallway when I thought no one was looking. All grown up but suddenly feeling so very small.

Our students had limited access to the news and outside lines, but through our whispers and grim expressions, they knew something was very wrong. How in the world do we tell these teens of the tragic magnitude we’ve yet to understand ourselves?

After some debate, it was decided that we would show them news clips that afternoon, and fill them in on what little we know. But first, a delicate piece of business. For one of our students this wasn’t some far away corner of America, seen in films but rarely visited. For her, it was home.

She hailed from Staten Island, NY, and her big heart and no-nonsense ways made her a fast favorite with all who knew her. As her mentor, the awfulness and sacredness fell to me to tell her of the gaping hole ripped into the heart of her hometown. I’d only just begun to learn what it is to sit with the broken, and the sound of her anguished cries stays with me still. Her aunt worked in the building she explained, and what do you mean calls can’t get through? If the raw pain and pure rage in that small body could’ve transported her, it would’ve carried her all the way home.

Sept. 11, 2001 was a Tuesday, and Eric and I had a road trip planned for Wednesday, our sights set on Niagara Falls. Those plans seemed small now, and an international tourist site no longer sounded like a good idea. So we went where we always went for comfort in those days, where we knew best: we went to the woods and disappeared into the trees. Letting the sunrises and sunsets, the wind in the treetops and gentle thunder of the waterfalls tend to the places in our broken hearts the trappings of civilization couldn’t quite reach. God met us there in those Ohio woods. By the cave and under the stars. By the river in our sandled feet, we poured out our grief, our fears, the innocence lost and the moral wound of a generation. What terror have we witnessed here, oh God Who Sees, and how will we carry on? For us, mere witnesses, but even more, those still searching for loved ones and choking out goodbyes?

Twenty years and we are here, facing fresh atrocities and uncertainties, the innocence of another generation lost. My children read about this day in their history books, not understanding that this particular page of history still echos in our bones. And for some, it still screams.
We Remember. We Remember.

Of Quarantine and Basketball

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Beautiful girl- you can do hard things!💗

Quarantine’s affected us all in different ways. Some fared better than others, but all are changed.

This little miss went from being always on the go, to learning the art of becoming un busy. Out in the country and far from friends she couldn’t gather with anyway, she mourned the loss of the comforting rhythm of her school/church/family/friends/karate/ballet-filled days.

And then in August, she mourned again the undoing of her quiet days, trading her creative and unstructured time for the hustle and bustle of playing educational catch-up in the midst of a pandemic, sighing deeply behind her mask.

In November, she begged to play basketball, but with COVID numbers on the rise, her protective parents wouldn’t take the risk. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Tears were shed all around, and Santa left a driveway goal in weary consolation.

Enter March, with fresh pleas for action. We relented, and she stood giddily in line as volleyball called her name. But when the time came, she didn’t want to go. She preferred the comfort of the quiet, lingering stillness of what remained of quarantine.

But despite her fear, she got up, she showed up, and she leveled up. As I watch her push herself, I smile. She loves this stuff. The bleary- eyed self-consciousness melting into resilient fire. 🔥

Beautiful girl, you can do hard things💗

The Weight and Honor of The Space We Hold

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A fiery bus crash. A young life lost. The hollowed stares and still-bandaged limbs of survivors. Siblings speaking of her in the present tense. A parent too lost in grief to receive the comfort of the comforters just outside her door. One officer lying in a hospital bed wracked with guilt that he couldn’t save them all, and another recounting in a daze the trauma of a wreck he worked and a door he knocked on in the middle of the night twenty years ago.

A call on a Sunday morning. The second of its kind in seven days. A troubled teen made a foolish choice at the wrong end of a gun, but he was ours. 

Another did nothing wrong at all, but excessive use of force ended his beautiful, promising life, and a whole community bled out.

A stray bullet at a party. 

A five dollar dice game turned deadly. 

An accidental overdose.

A pact between friends that ended with the loss of life. 

A game of Russian Roulette that isn’t a game at all, but instead, exactly that. A losing bet with the highest stakes and no take backs. 

A permanent solution to a temporary problem that is every parent’s worst nightmare.

And again.

And again.

And again.

The details are horrendous and have seeped into my soul. Broken into the dark places we don’t talk about in the light. The ones that wake you up in the middle of the night, that send you to check that your children are safe in their beds just one more time before you drift off to sleep and again at 4 am.  

Counselors standing amidst the sea of survivors, applying band-aids where heart surgery is needed. Emotional CPR, breathing life into life after life, only to find ourselves breathless and those around us gasping for air. Comforting the grieving only to become the grieving ourselves, we look to each other in a loss. A long line of needless, heedless loss, and too many close calls to count. In the span of a year a suspected active shooter, and six lost to gun violence in as many months a heartbeat before that. Now yet another precious life cut short by his own hands. 

How did we end up here? Where does it stop? I fear that it doesn’t stop at all, but around and around we go.

I’ve seen my share of trauma and had the rare honor to meet others in their dark and broken places. Stepping into the light after laboring in the dark startles the senses and often smacks of sacrilege. Frivolous coffee runs. Rushes to meet deadlines that no longer seem to matter. Laughter trickling down the hall from those that neither know nor want to know the sharp cut from the shards of their neighbor’s brokenness. 

We slip quietly back into our places, return to our desks, and lay down our capes for another day. Grateful that this mantle is ours to wear, and that giving the gift of our presence is often our most important work. But make no mistake: there is a price that is paid for the honor of holding space, and the vicarious trauma of the weight of it all takes its toll. As the world marches on and the demands of job and family continue to call, there are those of us still bleeding out while we try to juggle all the pieces.

Usually I don’t carry these things home, but sometimes it’s different. I close my eyes and see my child’s face, instantly recoiling from the thought, as a mother’s raw pain sears my heart. Those days are the hardest—moving through the hours like molasses, heaviness in the simplest of tasks. 

Why do I do it? There’s no doubt that I am called to this—that walking this road with the wounded is my way through the pain. It’s what I do. It’s how I’m built. But every once in a while, it seems that something comes along that reminds me that I’m not bulletproof. 

I’ve learned that sometimes the beauty is in the breaking, and it’s okay—healthy even—if I break a little too. I’ve found that it’s true that the light shines best through our broken places, better equipping us to light the way. 

It makes me a better counselor too. But God, what a price to pay.

The Awakening

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Awakened.

That’s a word we hear thrown around a lot. Being in touch with our inner selves- alive and awake to the calling within us to make this dream a reality. In some ways, I feel farther away from this dream than ever- mentally, financially, physically. Still vigorous, yet slightly startled to find that the slow beat of time I marched to in my youth has picked up its tempo. Real worries and deadlines and responsibilities that keep me up at night and feelings of not quite yet where I thought I’d be make up the cadence of the drumbeat to which I trod, up, up the mountain.

And it is here- at this tenuous precipice- that I find myself daring to hope for more, praying for abundant blessing to rain down from heaven and water these dry bones, breathing fresh life into these dreams of mine. For this dream ahead of me calls louder and shines clearer than ever. So clear, in fact, that what’s here and now verses what’s yet to be flickers in and out of view. But who’s to say which is more real- that which stands in front of me or that which beats within me?

This in-the-middle-age is no joke. As the little hands that hold tight to mine grip a little looser and grow a little bigger every day, they serve as a constant reminder of the press of time as it falls faster and faster through the hour glass of my life.

Visions of what could be if I dare to pour life into this hope are a fragile lifeline to this dream of mine in my all too awakened spirit. A lifeline that I balance upon, walk like a tightrope. A trapeze artist, I fly higher and higher as I strive, only to find I must let go of my safe hold if I am to soar above my circumstance and awaken fully to my dreams.

Fear-Stained Heart

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I have lived in fear of this day for over a decade. First in the abstract- a distant bridge to be crossed some day. When we’re older, wiser, more prepared. And then- in these last few months- as an end date. A day of unknown trepidation to which we were marching with ever gaining momentum. Could this really be the fix we’re looking for? That seemed too big a thing to hope. A promise too far away, and the cost too much to pay.


Was it worth the risk? How could we choose optional brain surgery? But was it really an option anymore? His seizures were getting worse, technology better, and we’d run the gamut of medications. Dare I trust my person- this wonderful husband of mine- to the lauded hands of the handsome young surgeon?
But then, it wasn’t just his hands at all. As the prayers and well wishes poured in, the wise words of a nurse and friend seeped into my fear-stained heart. “Good news is that the Lord has a steady hand.” Deep breath. We’re going to do this.


And the one who formed the oceans knows my name. Who spoke the stars into existence steadies the hands of the healer, and heals the parts of us no surgeon’s hands can touch. “Lean in and trust, close your eyes and fall, I’ve got you,” His voice seemed to whisper. My knuckles clenched. I swallowed hard. Tossed and turned in the sleepless nights as fear turned to resolve. Ride the wave. Trust in Him. Stay the course.


The body of Christ rose up and around me. My tribe showed up and answered the call. Held my hand a 5am, cooked meals, and watched my children. Cried big tears with me, helped me laugh out loud, and made me feel sane, even when I broke apart. They sat the watch, held their breath, celebrated the victories, fed me, cared for me, and prayed over me with love. Peace descended. Fear deserted. Hope overcame, and I knew I was not alone.


And the surgery? It went great. He sleeps peacefully in his bed tonight. Vitals are good, wit and humor intact. His grip on my hand is strong, his steady breathing balm for my soul. “He’s still him,” I confided to a friend as I hugged him tight. His eyes glittered with quiet understanding as they looked back into mine. I’d whispered my fears to him days ago, and we’d both cried. Friends filled the room, laughter trickled down the hall, and the road to recovery began. With my heart a little braver, my faith a little deeper, my love a little stronger. And my gratitude- as wide as the sky.


As for physical healing? We shall see. But oh, how I believe! For He healed something sacred in me.

Plowing Forward in the Storm

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This photo speaks to my heart. Female buffalo in a snow storm plowing forward, beautiful in determination and coming out the other side in victory and stronger than before. I’m not sure about what lies before us in the days ahead, but I do know that they are days I’ve prayed would never come.

A decade or more ago, I stared his brain surgery in the eye and we decided against it for a myriad of reasons. His seizures weren’t that bad, weren’t that often, there were other medications to try. We were too young for so drastic a measure. The list goes on.

And if the worst happened? Shouldn’t I be pregnant beforehand so a piece of him lives on? These last questions I asked quietly when the doctor and I were alone. He told me what I already knew- there are no guarantees. We decided to hold, to wait. He agreed.

And in the exhale, in the quiet hospital room I lay curled by his side, relief flooding in as the possibility of risky surgery was temporarily passed by. A worry for another day, or for someone else down the hall. “Not now,” came the whisper, “but one day you will have to cross this bridge. This cup is yours to drink, but it will wait. For a while.”

So we went home. We finished our counseling degrees. We built a home, a family, a life. The years passed, month after month we were lulled into a false sense of safety that this time, this time, we’d found the magic pill. And then another seizure would strike. Back to the drawing board. Again. The doctor called me up at work- they’d found a magic surgery that just might do the trick. “If he’s a candidate, I want you to do it,” the good doc said. We agreed. But he wasn’t. Whether we sighed with relief or disappointment, I’m not sure. Maybe both.

And then a year ago, in a heartbeat, everything changed. I found him on the floor, unresponsive. Oh he came right around, thank God, breathing normally before I was, but the spell was broken. It was time.

His gentle doctor retired, and we were pointed in the direction of the latest and greatest by a wise friend in the position to know. “What do you want?” asked the new doctor. He wasn’t one for beating around the bush. “If it’s seizure freedom you’re after, then you need to have surgery. The pills have lost their magic.”

So they lined up a year’s worth of testing and pokes and imaging. We made it through that obstacle course with flying colors and several tears, looking up to see the prize just there, on the other side of the bridge.

Like a mirage.

So here we are. With our hearts in our hands and the bridge now here- right in front of us, ready for us to step on the creaking boards. Will it hold us? Will we fall? Oh, but what if we fly? I can scarcely imagine it.

In the medical circles we’ve travelled here lately, the surgeon’s peers speak of his skills in quiet awe. “That’s a special set of hands he’s got there. You’re lucky to have him.” Lucky indeed.

The internal war continues to wage. God’s led us here, there’s no doubt. But he leads people lots of places. This is a blessing, an opportunity few receive. The chance for healing. But first, the test. This isn’t mine to control.

I open my hands to surrender, let go. Focus ahead with steely resolve and knocking knees to plow through this thing with courage despite my fear. To take the bull by the horns, so to speak. Bring on the storm, here we go.

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” – Crowfoot, Blackfoot Chief