they're okay
September 11, 2001 03:54 PM

Everything has gone completely surreal. War of the Worlds returned and I met it with a cluster of school superintendents panicing and running home to close schools and flip everything upside down.

But my dad is okay. He's okay. And he won't have to go to New York or out just in general. Because he had a minor heart thing, and he's okay really, and you can't be called back if you're in the hospital or at least if you are, it's a good sign you're not headed to war. But I still can't believe they didn't call me last night.

They didn't call me. But he's okay. A hundred pound sack of relief has been poured all over me. I'm sticky with it.

The unique, selfish dilemma of military childhood is that repetitive instant of "Where is he (or she, now)?". And that recognition. He's okay. This doesn't apply to him. You can't be a military kid without knowing that selfish, personal aspect of violence.

I meant, today, to write about seeing O and how violence is never truly inhuman, and rarely without motive. I meant to talk about how easy it is to put aside real violence and watch a film that shows similar things, shows how violence grows from human emotion, and ignore that you feel sympathy for the protagonist. That you can understand. Because movie violence we can understand, and real violence seems without meaning, without motive. We think inhuman but have done our own inhuman things we won't always admit.

I meant to talk about those things but can only think "He's okay".

People are walking down streets or sitting in offices wondering. Without the recognition. I know how they feel. It feels like the worst thing ever.

I wish they could all know. He's okay. She's okay. This doesn't apply to them. But some of those waiting. Soon, if not already, will be sticky with salt and anything but relief.