Two instances of head-bowed remembrances

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. LEST WE FORGET

“Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children. “
– President George W. Bush, November 11, 2001

“Our enemies have made the mistake that America’s enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw weakness. And now, they see defeat.”
– George W. Bush, President of the United States
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“Now, we have inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It’s a memory of tragedy and shock, of loss and mourning. But not only of loss and mourning. It’s also a memory of bravery and self-sacrifice, and the love that lays down its life for a friend–even a friend whose name it never knew.”
– President George W. Bush, December 11, 2001
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 “Today, we gather to be reassured that God hears the lamenting and bitter weeping of Mother America because so many of her children are no more. Let us now seek that assurance in prayer for the healing of our grief stricken hearts, for the souls and sacred memory of those who have been lost. Let us also pray for divine wisdom as our leaders consider the necessary actions for national security, wisdom of the grace of God that as we act, we not become the evil we deplore.”
– Rev. Nathan Baxter, Dean of Washington National Cathedral

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NINAGENE TILLERY—She is so much more than what appeared in her obituary. A poet, poetry column editor for the Hot Springs Sentinel Record for many years, former Steel Magnolia and Central Arkansas Writers member, prize winner in Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas’s contests, one of the latest being first place ($1,000) for her 2012 Sybil Nash Abrams poem, “Aunt Bessie McBee and the Salem Community Tornado, Saline County, Arkansas, Christmas Eve, 1982,” a beloved personal friend, a PRA Merit Award winner, PRA Anthology co-chair—the list could go on and on if I knew all her Hot Springs civic activities. She lived in Benton for a time before I knew her.

            Because of a promise she made to her late husband, she opened her home to her granddaughter and four great-granddaughters. She suffered at least one deep-seated bout of/with depression, but she finally swam up to the surface and took her life back. She “saw to” her sister as long as the sister lived. Nina was truly a giving person and tried to follow Jesus’s example and teachings. My prayer is now that she is free of her earthly burdens, she is flying around to find Jeanie Carter and Ann Kinnaird as well as her parents, husband and other family. That’s after she’s seen and knelt at the feet of God and Jesus.

 

Save me a place, Nina, though I won’t be as “high up” in God’s favor as you are. I love you.