THE ART OF SERVICE AND RECONCILIATION
I was awakened at 5:30 a.m. PST by a phone call from my sister telling me to turn on the news. We all woke up and turned on the television to see what everyone else was seeing live. The first tower of the World Trade Center had been hit, and smoke was billowing out. Our jaws had dropped, and our hearts were broken for the ones who had lost their lives up to that point. We then watched as the second plane exploded into the second tower. I will never forget that day for as long as I live but not just because of the terrorist attack.
That tragic event sparked my memories. I began to feel, almost immedi- ately, that I needed to reconcile with my mom for the comment she made fourteen years earlier, one in which I played a significant role in causing her to say. That night, still reeling from the 9/11 terror attack and the eeriness of empty streets and quiet skies, I decided to sit down with my mom and my wife and let her know about how the words she said so long ago were still with me.
After I had recounted that day fourteen years ago, my mom’s counte- nance changed. She started to cry and said she didn’t even remember saying those words, but was deeply sorrowful that something she had said in anger impacted my life so negatively. She then said the words that ultimately put me on a course correction in the relationship,
“Please forgive me, Danny. I never wanted to do or say anything to hurt you, and I am so sorry you have lived with this for so long.“
Of course, I began to sob. I quickly forgave my mom and also asked her to forgive me for never coming to her sooner to make this right. That night, fourteen years of hurt was healed, and the journey of our reconciliation started a new path of relationship that brought us so much closer.
You see, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was the day my mother was scheduled to fly out of LAX back to Baltimore at 11:00 a.m. PST. Who knows how deep the terrorists’ plans were and how many airplanes were targeted? No one will ever know, but I could have lost my mom that day and would have never had the opportunity to reconcile with her.
I learned so much that day. Deep and meaningful relationships are always threatened when we put off reconciliation and forgiveness (to be covered in the next chapter).
I might have lived in regret for the remainder of my life if my mom had been on an airplane that was used as a weapon against the United States. Mom lived another five years after that. In 2006, she died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism that broke free from her leg and went straight to her heart. She was sixty-one years old.