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Reeling from 9/11 loss, a family rallies behind cause of peace
Monday, September 11, 2006
BY JOHN TITUS
The tragedy of Sept. 11 has profoundly impacted my life at all levels: emotionally, psychologically, physically and spiritually. At first it nearly destroyed me - or at least it felt like it could have - as I found myself slipping into a deep, dark abyss of depression.
I couldn't sleep, I had no energy, I couldn't stand to be around people who were immersed in the mundane. My tolerance for small talk was nil, and all my wife and I wanted to do was run away.
But there is no running away from the loss of a child. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. We had to face it. We had to learn to live with a pain that longed to consume us and hurt deep into the soul.
It felt as if an intimate part of me had died on that day along with my daughter, Alicia; at times, I didn't know if I even wanted to live. If it hadn't been for my family and dear friends and the love I felt for them, I could easily have lost myself in depression. But, thank God that didn't happen!
When you're down and out, when life is so oppressive that it has become unbearable, when the world seems to have gone to hell and all you can feel is pain and anguish,what recourse do you have? Many succumb to these oppressive forces. Some become angry and strike out at the world and create more violence; some fight depression and seek relief through drugs, alcohol or some other form of escape.
My wife and I chose a path of healing in which we would search to understand the root causes of the political violence that took Alicia's life and strive to make this world better by using our grief to bring about awareness and change.
We joined with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows in the winter of 2002 and have traveled the U.S., Canada and Europe with our message of justice and peace, alternatives to war which inevitably results in the killing of innocent civilians (90 percent in Iraq), just like Alicia. Alicia was a victim of political violence. Most people seek understanding as to why we were attacked on Sept. 11 or how this could have been prevented. Our president stated publicly that it was because they were "evil people who hated our freedoms.''
But it goes much deeper than that. Sept. 11 was all too predictable and quite preventable. But if we continue on the path we're presently on, it is just a matter of time before this happens again.
My hope is that we can learn the lessons needed from this horrific attack, search for deeper understanding of causality and ways to rectify the conditions that exist which predispose such an attack, engage the world community in an effort to bring about justice for all people and start addressing human rights issues, genocide, abject poverty and preventable diseases that are devastating much of the world's population.
Our organization has met with victims' families in Afghanistan, Iraq, London, Madrid, Japan and Oklahoma City, and have joined with other organizations around the world who are searching for a deeper understanding and a compassionate response to bring about justice and ultimately peace. Our motivation is that we do not want to be responsible for the killing of innocent civilians through wars or any other means.
We have experienced the pain and sadness of loss due to political violence. And I don't want my grandchildren to have to live in a world in which this will happen again. War does not bring about peace even if all of the identified enemy were murdered. We must recognize our common humanity and how the atrocities of war and violence affect us at a spiritual level, at an emotional level and at a physical level - and stop this cycle of violence.
John Titus's daughter was killed when the plane she was riding in hit one of the Twin Towers of Sept. 11, 2001. He now lives in the greater Ann Arbor area.
www.peacefultomorrows.org/ ******************************************************
Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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