On Veteran's Day

This is a photo of my grandfather Ben - a young man heading off to war. After World War II, Ben became an alcoholic, prone to fits of rage and violence that destroyed his family. Ben had always wanted to be a writer, but his life turned out very differently. Sometimes I think it's part of my inheritance that I pick up the loose threads and carry on -  maybe that's why I feel compelled to write.

Here is a poem Ben wrote in his later years:

ON LITTLE BOYS

When he's small and he's sad, and he wants to cry,
He's told, "Stop! You mustn't do it!"
And whenever he asks for reasons why,
"You're a boy! That's all there is to it!"

So he hides it inside him where no one can see,
Cries in secret whenever he can,
For his parents have shouted, "Don't you dare shame me!"
"Stand up! Don't be soft! Be a man!"

Then he's told to follow that horrible star
Brutish God of gross barbarism
"Take up your weapons and be off to war!"
For scheming and false patriotism.

Those frightened young boys who march away
To send other young boys to their grave,
Who go off to kill or be killed in the fray,
For they're boys and must always be brave

Will justify their meaningless death
to themselves by being so brave,
As they senselessly die, give up their last breath,
the most precious of gifts that God gave.

Remembering 9/11

One World Trade Center
Taken early morning, Spring 2014

9/11/2001

Los Angeles

Our radio clock alarm was set for 6:30 am, just like every morning. We had to get our kids up and ready for school. Cristen was 16, Taylor 11.

When the alarm went off, Troy was already in the bathroom brushing his teeth. Instead of the jokes and banter of the Mark And Brian radio show that I usually awoke to, I heard fear and panic in a newscaster’s voice. I sat upright in bed. Her voice cracked as though she was on the verge of crying when she said something about a second plane hitting the twin towers.

I jumped up and ran to the living room, turning on the TV just as the second plane hit. “Oh my God, Oh my God!” I cried. Troy came into the living room completely unaware. He stopped when he saw the horror on my face. We both stood in front of the TV, hands over our mouths. I was crying. Troy was silent.

In that moment our world had changed. There was a certain feeling of immunity I think we all had as Americans. In the U.S., we don’t die of malaria, or starvation, or even AIDS, and we certainly don’t get attacked by other countries on our soil. (At least not in the continental U.S.) I had lived with a foolish naivete that I was safe. Maybe we all did. But in one split second, we had to grow up and face a new reality. Hate and fear, the most dangerous weapons in the world, had breached American security.

The phones began to ring, family and friends checking in. There was worry about friends on the east coast. I kept my kids home from school. At this time of uncertainty, I couldn’t be away from them.  My best friend Erin came over. We all clung to each other, glued to the television, desperate for any answers, any hope. My children, emotionally overwhelmed, slept on and off throughout the day as the television blared in the background.

Not knowing what to do with my anxiety, I cooked. First tremendous stacks of pancakes and bacon. Lots of coffee. A few hours later, heaping bowls of Spaghetti and meatballs, chocolate chip cookies. It’s funny how we all treat stress differently. Maybe eating, and being able to feed the people I loved, made me feel alive.

That’s pretty much the way I spent that day, and the days after. Cooking, nurturing, feeding. And Crying. A lot of crying. The grief of those people on the streets searching for their loved ones. Seeing people jump from the ledges in desperation. I carried their pain.

Grief gave way to deep sorrow as I worried about the bloodshed I knew was now inevitable. Many more people would die for this, both Americans and Arabs. And 90% of them would be not our enemies, but every day people, shopkeepers, mothers, children, young boys who signed up for the military to get a college education. Thousands of innocents, who had nothing to do with this war, would die.

10 days after 9/11, I woke again at 6:30am with a song running through my mind. I got up and recorded it into a handheld recorder. This is the song that was somehow “given” to me as I slept that night.

(Produced, and all guitars and gorgeous string arrangements by my husband Troy Dexter)

Upload your music for free at ReverbNation.com

“Are They Not Mine”

9/20/2001

Oceans divide

Soldiers will unite

As we fulfill this prophecy

Eye for an eye

‘til all the world is blind

How many will fall

Before we see?

His blood is red

It spills like wine

The tears they shed

Are they not mine?

As cities fall

And mothers cry

For children lost

Are they not mine?

We cry out in anguish to Gods of different names

but were we not cut from the same cloth?

We wage our battles until the price is paid

But what is the price for innocence lost?

His blood is red

It spills like wine

The tears they shed

Are they not mine?

As cities fall

And mothers cry

For children lost

Are they not mine?

And is that not my brother

that you buried?

he lies beneath the cross now

that all of us must carry

It’s said that we are

A brotherhood of man

When did my brother’s blood run cold

To justify murder over holy land

To see his country bought and sold


In honor of all those lost on 9/11/01, and the thousands more in the ten long years since.