Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Jodie and Elliott around 2000 or so. New York City

I was never sure until today what the lyric "the day the music died" in the Don McLean song referred to. I had to look it up - it's about the day that Buddy Holly died.

It was good not knowing cause it always meant whatever I wanted it to mean.

13 years ago today I suppose something more than the music died for a whole lot of people.

It's an odd Bar or Bat Mitzvah of sorts for an event that did so much to shape the future for anyone old enough to recall where they were on 9/11/01. 

I was in Raul's office in Allapattah - then the South Florida headquarters for the After School All Stars/Inner City Games. Fredi the controller and I watched on a tiny portable TV, not really knowing or realizing what we were seeing. Elliott was in 6th grade and I called his school (remember no texts, not real internet to speak of and of course our kids didn't all have cell phones) and heard the headmaster's voice on a recording letting me know that the school was on lockdown and we weren't supposed to pick our kids up until later on. Scary.

Ask any 23 or 24 or 25 year old that you know about 9/11 and I suppose they will tell you that their memories of that day, like our memories of the days that Jack or Martin or Bobby were assassinated or maybe the day that the students were killed at Kent State, shaped a whole lot about how they live and work and love and trust.

Maybe the music dies all of the time and is somehow magically reincarnated to give us hope?

Take a moment if you can to reflect on how fleeting life can be and how events large and small impact who we are and what we feel.