Tag Archives: All PartsTogether

   Have you ever had a terrible, unexpected thing happen to you? How did you react? When the attack on the Twin Towers happened on 9/11, you might have had one of these feelings–

• You wanted to kill those bastards who did it.
• You couldn’t believe it.
• You were scared.

When I wrote a historical novel named Sissy, I had a character named Jessica Radford in 1862 who was shocked to learn her parents were brutally murdered–burned alive in their house–by a border ruffian named Sam Toby. Jessica’s words were: “He’s the wretch I’m going to send straight to hell.”

In my murder mystery, An Innocent Murdered, I had a detective named Matt Gunnison who couldn’t believe that a certain someone killed a sweet 8-year-old girl.  Matt later goes to a church and weeps. A friend of Matt’s offers him a tissue. “Hey, I’m all right,” he said, embarrassed that she had seen him cry. She dries her own tears. “This is a good place to go when you’re in a lot of pain,” she says wistfully. “Yeah,” he says, “I guess it is.”

Audrey, a level-headed intelligent astronaut becomes unglued in my novel Advent when she finally tells Greg she now believes the earth may be on a collision course with a celestial body called Nemesis “Oh, Greg, I’m frightened. Even Bowles is now curious about your SOR21 star. He said he wanted to gather all the available data on it from other observatories and see if he could make some sense from all of it. I’m sorry I was so stubborn, Greg. Why can’t I see things the way they really are?” With the state of the world being as it is, what are we to do when our child is born?” Greg frowns. “What do you mean?” “Oh, Greg, I think I may be pregnant.”

When the attack on the Twin Towers occurred on 9/11/2001, our initial emotions were probably a mixture of shock, anger, and grief, probably all mixed into one. Mine was one of fear as I dropped to my knees and prayed to God, believing that the entire country was under attack. But now that I’ve sorted through all of this ugliness, all of this unbelievable horror, I realize that some good came from this tragedy. Signs of compassion were evident just about everywhere.

Take 33-year-old Todd Beamer, for instance. Todd and other passengers on the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 93 learned via cell phones and air phones that two other airlines were hijacked and flown into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. There was no doubt in his mind that UA 93 was probably headed for its next target–either the U.S. Capitol or the White House. A normal reaction would have been one of shock, followed by climbing into one’s shell to prepare to meet his or her Maker. I mean if you know you’re going to die, you shut everything else from you mind and concentrate solely on thinking about yourself and your loved ones. Not Todd Beamer. Yes, he thought about his family–his wife Lisa, his two young sons, and a daughter who was to be born four months later. But he also felt a sense of duty and a compassion for our country should UA 93 meet its intended target. While on an air phone with a GTE supervisor named Lisa Jefferson, he told and Ms. Jefferson that he and other men on the plane would jump the hijackers. Then he prayed the “Our Father” with her, but his last two words–full of unselfish determination–were “Let’s roll.”

I’ll continue this discussion on a future blog about 9/11 and what it might have to do with angels. But in the meantime, you might be interested in learning what role compassion played or didn’t play in Lincoln’s assassination. My historical novel All Parts Together, will give you some interesting insight into the matter. I hope you will at least click on the book cover at the right of this page and read the summary. I think you will discover why this novel was seriously considered for a Pulitzer Prize nomination.