911 & THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

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911. Nine One One. We have only to see it enumerated, written or spoken for us to conjure up fresh memories of that horrendous day. It’s odd; 911 used to mean something else to us. I have actually wondered if the terrorists chose that day based on the emergency phone number it represents.

Ground Zero. We don’t have to close our eyes to see it looming before us. We can almost walk its artificial valley in our mind.

Everything changed that day, perhaps at a more traumatic and persistent level than December 7th, “the day that will live in infamy,” or November 22nd, the infamous date of Kennedy’s assassination.

 (November 22nd was the only day I stayed home sick from high school in 1963. I don’t know how I managed to choose that day. But I’ll never forget Walter Cronkite, and his memorable broadcast).

I was also watching TV on “911.” Oddity of oddities, I was coloring my wife’s hair. And then it happened!

Hundreds of firemen and policemen died trying to do the impossible. They embraced that well-worn adage; “We have to go out. We don’t have to come back.” One particular father’s son didn’t come back; at least not alive.

We see the elderly man trudging down the dusty boulevard, stumbling occasionally, and picking his way around the rubble of unknown objects. He has a determined look on his face, and his jaw is set. We notice his apparel, for he is dressed like one of the dozens of other men around him. He tells a reporter that he is a retired fire chief. He has been away from his life’s work for nearly a decade. But fate has called to him, and he has responded to that Call. He holds a little spade in his hand, and we begin to realize the task he has embraced.

“My son is under that rubble, and I come here daily. I come
here to dig. I have been digging on this site for ten days, and I will continue to dig ‘til every fallen hero leaves this awful place.”

He thinks he knows where to dig. At least he’s digging in the general area where his Johnny “laid it all down forever.”

He has another son. That son is also a fireman, and on that day of days, James had spent the night at Ground Zero. He had slept under the stars, as if by some means Johnny could know that he was there for him.

The father continues to speak:

“We never leave our heroes on the field of their labor. We find them, and we carry them away. We cannot leave them here.”

The father digs in the heat of the day, and beneath the glistening white moon. He bends his back for 16, no 18 hours a day. He sleeps in fits and starts. He is a man on a mission.

Exactly three months to the day after 911, Johnny is found and identified. It would be fitting to think that his Dad found him ‘neath those tons of twisted steel and glass, but that’s not how it happened. But Dad and Brother honored their Son and Brother by taking him off the field of his labor. James may have remembered the title of that old song, “He’s not heavy, he’s my brother.”

Johnny was given a hero’s funeral. Father, brother and his own little son helped carry him to his final resting place. We see them sadly walking, struggling a bit with the casket, marching cadence to a bag piper’s mournful melody.

And I might quickly remind you that several fathers were on the field, digging for their lost children, and several old men “stayed the course” ‘til their boys were found.

We can learn from that father’s determination; his ultimate dedication to an almost impossible task.

Those who come to me for marital counseling are so reminiscent of “those who dig.” I watch them as they “dig,” and I can quickly determine how precious is the jewel for which they dig. Some go at it with fervor, but tire quickly. Others seem lazy and unconvinced of the necessity. While many lack any real enthusiasm, and don’t remind me of those who search for “the pearl of great price.”

For there are those who have the opportunity to dig, not for something dead and ready for burial, but for something wounded; something able to be resurrected, if given a chance.

And there will be those couples who strive together to find “the pearl of great price,” to lift up their fallen marriage, to apply the salve of healing, to apply the bandages of understanding and insight, to resurrect something that is nigh on to dying; that good thing which has a chance to live again.

by William McDonald, PhD