Our family dog cowered in the corner of the living room.
It was a warm summer day, with sunshine streaming through the bay windows. But to look at the dog, you’d think a thunderstorm was brewing outside. She seemed distant and out of sorts.
Zephyr, I called over to her. Come here, Zephyr.
She didn’t move.
Undeterred, I made my way across the room to check on her.
I noticed that Zephyr’s breathing was heavy. As I touched her nose with my left hand, I noticed it was hot.
I knew instantly that something was terribly wrong.
Moments later, the dog was on the way to the veterinary Emergency Room.
The vet said Zephyr had an enlarged heart. My parents had no choice but to put her down.
I was 9 years old at the time, and I’d never encountered death before. Realizing that I would never see our beloved family dog again was as strange as it was devastating.
The house just seemed too silent without Zephyr’s presence. Neighborhood walks just seemed too foreign without her sniffing all the bushes and tugging on the leash.
My parents sensed my discomfort, and that of my sister. So, they encouraged us to write down our memories of Zephyr.
We did so dutifully.
A few days later, the family gathered in the backyard. My sister and I shared our memories of Zephyr. My grandparents did the same, followed by my parents.
Once all the speeches were complete, we went over to the flowerbeds along the fence line and scattered her ashes.
The loss was still raw. The wounds were still present. But words had lightened the load just a bit.
On a sunny morning a little more than four years later, I was sitting in my 8th grade history class. As my teacher scribbled on the whiteboard, I heard a plane fly overhead.
Moments later, that plane hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. And my life changed forever.
I’ve written plenty about September 11th before. On what a surreal day that was. And on the shadow it’s cast over me for years.
Those are the natural byproducts of such a profoundly traumatic event.
But there was something more to the grief I was feeling than what I’d encountered with Zephyr’s passing. The eeriness of silence.
You see, as my father gathered me from school and shepherded me home, quiet overcame him. He had nothing to share that would ease the anxiety or make things seem normal again.
The same was true once we’d gotten off the island of Manhattan and reunited with my mother and sister. You could have heard a pin drop on the ride to the suburbs.
And even the comforts of home brought little in terms of solace. As I parked myself in from of the television, I noticed that CNN was reporting diligently on what they could see – mostly fallen buildings and rescue efforts. But none of the network’s anchors or reporters could make much sense of what had happened.
9/11 was my first exposure to a new kind of tragedy. One where no words suffice to explain its horror. One where the collective silence tells its own story.
It’s uncomfortable. It’s unnerving. But unfortunately, it’s a staple of our existence.
Not long before I sat down to write this article, tragedy struck my home state of Texas.
Heavy rains turned a river into a wall of water in the middle of the night. In an instant, retirees, vacationers, and children at sleepaway camps were swept away by the floodwaters. More than 100 people died, including more than 20 young girls at one of those camps.
I live hundreds of miles from the tragedy, and I don’t know any of the victims personally. Yet, this incident has still rocked me to my core.
It’s not just the concept of children perishing that haunts me. It’s not just the concept of my state’s serene natural resources becoming a lethal weapon that gets me. It’s the eerie silence of it all, once again.
We can try our best to put the devastation into words. But no words suffice.
And so, we’re stuck with that hollow, isolating feeling. We’re left with our hearts in our throats. With pits in our stomachs. And with no prospects for a reprieve.
It’s sickening.
When I was three years old, I got separated from my mother at the playground.
I had just gone down a slide and I ran toward another one – without checking if my mother was following me. When I turned around, I didn’t see her.
I frantically retraced my steps, running back to the slide I’d just been on, the swing set, the monkey bars. I searched every corner of the playground without avail.
She was gone.
I stared across the playground, looking for something – anything – to protect me from the terror I now felt. But park benches and playground equipment don’t have much to say. And the silence only freaked me out even more.
Panic gave way to despair. I started to cry.
Soon enough, another child’s mother saw me and took me by the hand.
We’re going to find your mom, she told me as we wandered around the playground and then along the park pathways.
Moments later, we did. And a tearful embrace ensued.
It turned out that my mother had left the playground with my sister, thinking I was right behind her. When she realized I wasn’t, she’d doubled back. But because I was wandering the playground looking for her, we somehow missed each other.
This was a minor, traumatic blip in an otherwise happy childhood. But it’s stayed with me.
Why? Because during that brief moment when I was lost, I saw how callous the world really was. Park benches weren’t going to ease my despair. Neither were swing sets or tree trunks.
Indeed, nothing around me was going to make everything feel alright.
That somber sense of isolation, of vulnerability, it compounds over time. It slowly takes over our minds and our souls, leaving us distant and empty inside.
It’s on us to rebuild the buffer that was taken from us. Collectively. As a community.
It’s on us to be present. To be empathetic. To provide a modicum of comfort, even when no words can suffice to aid our mission.
That’s what I did in the aftermath of September 11th. I visited the memorial. I prayed. And I tried my hardest to connect with the community.
It wouldn’t bring the twin towers back – or all who were lost in the rubble. But it ensured that I would live a life that honored those taken.
Through that process, I eventually found the words to say. I found the strength to heal. And I found a path forward with promise.
Now, as the rushing water on the ground in Texas gives way to the tears in our eyes, I hope that we all can find the strength to repeat the feat.
Words don’t suffice right now. But actions certainly do.