Author Information
CAN YOU MISS SOMEONE YOU NEVER KNEW?
I listened to loved ones reading the names of those they lost on 9/11 and long before the reading was through….I remember thinking to myself…How can you miss someone you never knew?
Some of the people reading the names on that sorrowful carrousel…weren’t even born when those planes crashed…weren’t alive when the towers fell.
They were too young to know the person hatred mercilessly snatched away…yet they all said: Even though I never knew you…I miss you every day.
So I began to listen more closely at how their stories intertwined…and how they all found joy and happiness in the memories left behind.
Ironically, it is that joy and happiness…(at least this is my belief)…that offers us some comfort…as it ushers in our grief.
And it is precisely that joy and happiness spread out to each family member…to those who were not born yet…or those oo young to remember…
Joyous memories of an uncle, brother, sister, father or a wife…that takes a person they never knew they lost…and brings them back to life.
“You were my best friend…brother.”
“She was smart and funny and wise.”
“Mommy says I have your smile.”
“Daddy says have your eyes.”
Perhaps it is each memory of a moment of love…a moment shared…that helps us through those other moments…when we’re sad or lonely or scared.
Perhaps it is each memory…with a loved one that we share…that can help to build a memory…of a person no longer there.
And perhaps it is each memory passed from me to you…to you…
That can make another person…miss…someone they never knew…
Yes, the more I listened the more I realized…it is possible to miss someone you never knew…
because as they told their stories…
I began to miss them too.
