Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Day before The Day or Sometimes it's the little things

I couldn't decide what to title this post - so you got two titles.

Today is the day before the day. Tomorrow is 9/11. Who remembers what they were doing 7 years ago today? Probably very few. Maybe the widows and widowers of 9/11 victims. I hope they do. I hope they are happy memories. I wonder - do they dread today almost as much as tomorrow? Because today, they start bracing themselves for the pain of tomorrow's memories?

So, the other title. Sometimes it's the little things which mean the most, The small gesture that touches your heart. A simple act of kindness which means so much. Today, my husband and his co-workers are doing what may seem to others as a little thing, but to some people may mean a lot. My husband is a member of Rescue 1 in the FDNY. The FDNY - and the firefighting profession in general - is a big brotherhood. They take care of their own and the families of their own. Today, the active members of R-1 have split up into teams. They are going to the grave sites of all the members of R-1 who died on 9/11. They will clean the headstones and clean up the grave sites, removing dead flowers, etc. It is something small they are doing, but tomorrow, when the families of those deceased members of R-1 go to visit their loved ones, they will see a clean headstone. They won't see dead flowers or plants. It's not much, but maybe it eases their burden a little and maybe that's a lot.

5 comments:

Tricia said...

Oh Kate - your husband is a wonderful man. Please thank him for me. What a nice thing to do for the many familes who will be missing loved ones tomorrow.

AlwaysJoy said...

Kate,
Your post left me in tears... Again I am amazed by the hero that is A.

And BTW I remember that day down to what I had for breakfast - where I sat at work, what I did when we were closed and that I spent the afternoon painting my library because I had to not hear about it or talk about it. At the end of the day I looked at the color of the paint (the name) and it was Pearl Harbor and I burst into tears!

It was also the scheduled night of my first date with Jim - we canceled.

Aims said...

It's no small thing. Not small at all.

Brenna said...

What a perfect gesture.
I still have my ticket stub from Maceo Parker at Harper's Ferry on 9/10/01 in Allston, whenever I see it I think about that being the last night of an old era.

annie said...

That is such a beautiful thing for them to do. You have such a good guy!