Hello everyone! I really wanted to check in with you all on this sad, happy, mournful as well as celebratory day when we honor the lives of thousands of our fellow Americans who perished on September 11, 2001. We celebrate their lives as well as re-affirm our grief at their loss.
It truly is a day, among the remembrances and commemorations, to reflect upon our lives today as well. In this time of reflection, I also include the life of our nation and where we stand as a people.
It is gratifying to witness the true and sincere acts of courage and determination and homage to our heroes of this day, and to all of our friends and family members whose lives were lost. It has been estimated that one in four citizens in our country knew someone who was either killed or wounded on 9/11/01. I personally knew two men who were killed. Both were co-workers in Manhattan and, in honesty, were acquaintances with whom I occasionally interacted at business meetings. It does not lesson the impact of their loss on me. I also had the opportunity on July 4, 2000 to stand outside at the top of one of the twin towers (the one without the radio tower) and witness the Independence Day celebration in New York Harbor. This included seeing F-15 and F-18 fighter jets flying BELOW us, as well as seeing the Stealth Bomber, the secret black winged aircraft, scream over our heads at hundreds of miles per hour.
So, in today’s reflections, I was drawn back to a story I read a short while ago about two American citizens who were deliberately murdered by the same evil, cold-blooded people and twisted beliefs that wreaked such horror on our friends and families on this day in 2001.
I have included a link to the full story in the New York Times August 7, 2018. It is well worth reading, as are some of the links in the article to a blog maintained by one of the Americans that more fully describes these intriguing people.
The Americans who were killed were Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, both 29 years old. They were close friends who shared a passion for cycling, meeting people and exploring the world up close. They reached the point in their lives and in their shared interests where they decided to give up, at least for a time, what they considered the mundane, humdrum, partially scripted lives as office dwellers, cubicle inhabitants who attended meetings and gave Powerpoint demonstrations, tracking working hours, spreadsheets, participating in teleconferences, attending to all of the day-to-day tedium that can creep into any job.
In July of 2017, they embarked on a cycling journey which involved, among many other places, part of the country of Tajikistan, which is a central Asian country close to China and Afghanistan. During their journey, they had encountered many, many happy moments that re-affirmed in their minds the essential goodness and kindness in people throughout the world. They also, of course, ran into those who did not display these same values, as well as an occasionally uncooperative Mother Nature and other unavoidable unpleasantries.
Most terribly for both Mr. Austin and Ms. Geoghegan, on July 29, 2018, as they cycled with a group of like-minded cyclists in a particularly scenic part of Tajikistan, a car passed by the group on the road, stopped and turned around. The driver of the car then sped up and deliberately ran into the cyclists and drove the car over them, killing Mr. Austin, Ms. Geoghegan, and two other cyclists from Switzerland and the Netherlands. The driver and passengers in the car were later identified in a video released by the Islamic State as members of that organization who were carrying out their ‘mission’ against disbelievers.
On this day, September 11, 2018, I find myself thinking of the unrecoverable loss our nation and the world suffered in 2001 at the hands of people who perpetrated the same kind of pointless, useless and mindless violence against these two Americans.
I recently have eased into retirement from my own career as an office dweller and cubicle inhabitant, who labored through some of the same mundane and tedious moments as those experienced, and rejected, by Ms. Geoghegan and Mr. Austin. In fairness, I enjoyed a very satisfying career in the information technology business, however, there was far too much of what these two Americans jettisoned from their lives.
I was particularly struck by a highly impactful insight Mr. Austin posted in his blog, accessible via the link to the NY Times article. As I adjust to new life routines, and have far more time to contemplate my life and the lives of those closest to me, I found Mr. Austin’s perspective quite profound, and particularly appropriate today, when we mourn the huge loss of lives, vow to make positive changes in our lives, and pledge to take the time to appreciate the sweet and beautiful moments of life, including not allowing too many gentle breezes to go unnoticed….
This is Mr. Austin’s blog reply to the questions he was asked concerning WHY he decided to give up a good job in a steady, predictable life, WHY he decided not to follow the traditional path of his peers, and WHY he so strongly felt that he had to change his life’s path to what his heart told him to do. May Mr. Austin and Ms. Geoghegan rest in peace, along with all our friends and families who lost their own lives on September 11, 2001.
I’m grateful for the opportunity, and I’m anxious to turn my back on what was really a good thing. But getting too cozy is dangerous. Inertia is a stealthy predator. I’ve learned a lot from these seven years, and I enjoyed plenty, but with each passing year I feel I learned a little less. The days have blended into weeks, the weeks into months, the months into years. I’ve grown tired of meetings, of teleconferences, of timesheets and password changes and Monday morning elevator commiseration. I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige. I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed. There’s magic out there, in this great big beautiful world, and I’ve long since scooped up the last of the scraps to be found in my cubicle.
Denny's America 
Another great article much food for thought. Patrice
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